About This Episode:
Is headless automation worth it?
Do you need to automate a Flutter or React application?
Does your application even scale for one user?
Did you know that Devices like pacemakers and insulin pumps could be vulnerable to security hacks?
Find out the answer to these and other full-stack automation testing, performance testing, Site reliability engineering, security DevOps-related news items for the week of Sep 26 in this edition of the TestGuild News Show.
So grab your favorite cup of coffee or tea, and let's do this.
Exclusive Sponsor
This episode of the TestGuild News Show is sponsored by the folks at Applitools. Applitools is a next-generation test automation platform powered by Visual AI. Increase quality, accelerate delivery and reduce cost with the world’s most intelligent test automation platform. Seeing is believing, so create a free account now.
Links to News Mentioned in this Episode
*** Applitools free account: https://rcl.ink/xroZw ***
1.https://applitools.com/future-of-testing-frameworks-north-america-2021/
2.https://link.medium.com/9utUnEhJRjb
https://medium.com/geekculture/headless-browser-testing-clarified-d544ef0acf43
4.https://share.getcloudapp.com/bLuqLv2A
5.https://twitter.com/janmolak/status/774257301930868738?s=21
6.https://youtu.be/DlGQEQ2q35w
9.https://grafana.com/go/webinar/intro-to-load-testing-with-grafana-and-k6
10.https://github.com/localstack/localstack
11.https://www.theverge.com/2021/9/21/22686000/medical-device-cybersecurity-hack-minnesota
News
And speaking of Applitools, I'm actually going to be hosting a free event on September 30th for them called Future of Testing Frameworks. And this is your chance to get a hands-on view from some of the top experts in this area on different frameworks, how there used. Some New functionality. So don't miss out. It's only a few days away. So click on the link below to register for the future of testing frameworks event.
So first up in automation testing news. So that's really an interesting discussion going on about headless automation testing in LinkedIn. Where Kelly asks I have a question for all my software testing friends. If you run automation, test heedlessly can still be considered a UI test. And Greg Paskal had an interesting response on how they've run automated tests and headless chrome instances. And he says that actually performed differently than the default Chrome configuration and they proved this several times at his company in a real-world scenario. And he would argue that the consistency of execution far trumps the speed of execution.
So this led me to down a rabbit hole of another article I found. And this talks about why use headless testing at all. He goes into insights on what the benefits are, what the pros and cons are, and what he ultimately decided was best for his team and his situation. I highly recommend checking out this blog post as well to go into a little more detail on the pros and cons of headless browser testing.
I actually did a meet-up last week on what I call the future of automation testing trends for 2022. And one of the trends I identified is the increase of people moving to mobile type devices, especially with covid. Everyone's moving to try to get online to get the business up and running. So it's a trend I see growing even more in. Anytime I see trends in mobile testing, a lot of times it's related to technology and two types of technologies seem to be really driving this. They seem to be a kind of seem-to-be mobile-first technology and that is Flutter and react type applications. So I think it's a technology need to know more about. And before actually testing new technology, I think you need to actually understand the technology itself. So I find a really good article on the breakdown between Flutter and React, and I think you should definitely give a read and that just goes into detail on Flutter react what the differences are, pros and cons, what the developer experiences. So I just think it's another really good read. I think you should also check out.
More companies are really turning to codeless test automation nowadays. So I think it fits in certain instances for certain companies of certain teams, especially if you have package applications that you need to test, like Oracle or Salesforce. We really have experts that know the flow of these applications, but they may not be technically developers or automation or engineers or testers. They can use this type of solution to quickly create automation flows for their applications. So I think it's definitely worth checking out if you're in that situation or checking them out to see how the technology's moved along in the last few years. So this article actually goes over codeless test of automation. And what you need to know before you actually start your journey by Jonathan and just give some insights on defining what is codeless test automation. Some challenges, of codeless automation, three ways to get started. And he has a quick user case that goes over how they've implemented this automation as well.
So another thing that came across my news desk is Google unveils the results of their DevOps report. And they examined the practices that drive software delivery, operational and organizational performance and then identify four metrics that classify teams as elite. And they go over how they define elite and what those different practices are in, one of the interesting key findings in this report is continuous testing & Continuous Integration are both indicators of success, according to the report of high-performance teams. So it goes over, like I said, a lot of different things to definitely check out the report in the link below for more info.
Have you heard about the automation wrapper called Serenity that actually acts like a wrapper on top of different technologies and gives you all this awesome reporting and other benefits of using it so you don't have to start your automation frameworks from scratch? I've actually been talking about it since 2014. It used to be called Thusidydis and they renamed it Serenity. So I actually just saw this tweet I missed. It happened a few weeks ago, but they actually ported over pieces of serenity to WebDriver.io To take advantage of the screenplay pattern in this article just goes into detail on WebDriver.io and how it is now integrates with serenity.js And some of the benefits you get of using this type of integration. So definitely worth checking out if you're using JavaScript and WebDriver.io To get some extra benefits out of your existing framework.
In last up in automation news, we have Cypress. So if you do anything with Cypress, you definitely should be checking out and following Gleb. Gleb has a great YouTube channel started. It should have more subscribers than I think he has and he goes over the new cy.session command that solves the problem of caching. Restrung cookies. Definitely a cool technique. How to authenticate faster and test that he goes over in this video. So just a good resource to know and someone you should definitely be following for all things Cypress-related.
So next up, performance and so reliability news. So if you don't know but open telemetry definitely should check it out and open telemetry.io. It's a standard that a lot of companies are embracing and it's actually gaining momentum. And this latest article goes over how open telemetry has become basically the observability standard. So if you're not aware of open telemetry, if you're not aware of observability, I highly recommend you check out this article, and open telemetry to learn more because I think it's something you're going to have to start implementing as we go forward in the new year and beyond.
So one person should definitely be following on LinkedIn and all the other socials is James Pulley for performance testing-related information. And this latest is from his LinkedIn post, where he talks about does your application scale for one user. And he goes over why a lot of people actually ignore this or not ignore it. They don't really focus in on a single user metric. They usually go right to a stress test or a load test. Goes over a rule of thumb of what you can do to make sure that your application is performant not just for many users, but you can't be performant for many users. If it's not, perform it for one user. So good advice from James there to definitely check it up in the links down below. A.
Nd another must follow the person in the performance engineering space. Observability Space is Nicole? And she has a really cool webinar on how to get started with load testing using k6 and just goes over the introduction to load testing. And so if you ever want to know anything about performance testing or testing or k6 and Grafana. So Nicole is one of the go to resources for anything performance-related. But as I said, she has a really engaging style. So definitely check out that webinar as well. If you want to learn more about getting started with load testing,.
And do you test on AWS cloud platforms, you need a way to actually debug locally on your local machine? Well, I came across a tool that's going to help you do that as well. So this is a fully functioning local AWS cloud stack so you can develop and test your cloud and serverless apps offline. Really cool solution free for you on GitHub has over 34000 stars, so it's definitely worth you checking if you do it with AWS and you need to start to debugging locally, definitely check out this solution.
Next up, security news and first news item is an acquisition recently that kind of caught my attention and that is how LG acquired an automotive cybersecurity startup. So really interesting to find out how LG is getting into the space to me, just signals how automotive testing in cybersecurity is going to be even a bigger thing in 2022 and beyond. And I think this is a growing area that there's probably gonna be a lot of opportunities for a career or for a job opportunity. So definitely check it out.
And the last article on security is how a new cybersecurity center wants to protect medical devices from hacks. So over the past decade, there's been an explosion in the number of connected medical devices, drug infusion, pumps, pacemakers, monitors, which makes this an issue even more pressing than ever before. And that's why you should definitely be involved in security testing, even if you're more of a functional tester. I think it's really critical that we also get our heads around security testing.
So let's wrap up this episode of the TestGuild news show. But before we go, make sure to get your free Applitools account to discover how AI-based visual validation testing can help you in your testing efforts.
So that's it for this episode of the TestGuild news show. I'm Joe. My mission is to help you succeed in creating an E2E full-stack automation awesomeness,.
As always, test everything and keep the good. Cheers
