Testtalks | Automation Awesomeness | Helping You Succeed With Test Automation

SmartBear’s API Readiness Platform: Ready! API SmartBear recently released a new API testing tool named Ready! API. But I think that like with any new tool/rebranding effort things can get a little confusing. That’s why I asked Mike Giller, a technical engineer at SmartBear, to appear on the TestTalks show to let us know exactly what Ready! API is and how we can use it to automate our API tests. Mike also shares with us all the cool new features of Ready! API and reveals SmartBear's vision for the future of API testing using the Ready! API platform.

Do you want to take your career (and life) to the next level? Discover how to make this your best year ever with John Sonmez, the author of Soft Skills: The software developer’s life manual. In this episode John, who I’ve dubbed “the hardest working developer in the software business”, shares with us his best tips for becoming a successful software developer/tester.

The Cucumber Book – Behavior-Driven Development for Testers and Developers Are you trying to get up to speed on Behavior-Driven Development (BDD), but are finding all the information hard to digest? When you’re in a meeting do you wonder why everyone suddenly has a craving for cucumbers? Are you responsible for test automation and want to know how it all fits in BDD? Do you want to know what level of detail your BDD scenarios should be written in? In this episode, you’ll hear the answer to these questions and many more as we test talk with Matt Wynne, author of The Cucumber Book.

Agile Testing If you’ve resolved to start your Agile testing efforts off right in 2015, then this episode is for you. You’ll discover what foundational principles you’ll need for better Agile practices in the new year. Janet shares with us a bunch of awesome Agile tips and tricks to help those who are trying to improve their current Agile Testing efforts, as well as anyone who wants to start their 2015 testing projects using good, solid Agile testing best practices.

Top Three Testing Trends for 2015 In this episode, I recap 2014 as well as break out my crystal ball to define what I see as the top testing trends for 2015 – information you’ll need to know in order to succeed in the New Year. I also share with you my top three must-read books for 2015 as well as the top three tools that will help you have the most productive, automation-awesomest year ever.

SmartBear's TestComplete SmartBear's TestComplete Platform helps you create repeatable and accurate automated tests across multiple devices, platforms and environments quickly and easily. The latest version of TestComplete is now even better with its support of Selenium WebDriver and unit testing. Today we’ll talk about all things test automation-related with TestComplete.

Debugging with Fiddler Have you ever wished for a tool that was easy to use and customize that would help you debug and security test your web applications? How awesome would it be if that tool was also free? Believe it or not, there is such a tool —Fiddler. Fiddler is a web debugging proxy platform that monitors and modifies web traffic. This awesome freeware tool helps you to inspect traffic, set breakpoints, and “fiddle” with incoming and outgoing data.

Selenium Design Patterns and Best Practices Nothing is more soul crushing than having a test suite that is all over the place and just fails randomly. If you have ever felt this way, I’ve got the cure for all your test automation flakyness blues. In this episode Dima Kovalenko, author of Selenium Design Patterns and Best Practices shares with us the best strategies to create reusable, maintainable, stress-free Selenium tests.

The Benefits of Testing Legacy Code Sure. We all love to test against the latest and greatest, shiny new web applications. But what happens if you need to test older legacy code? Could there actually be a benefit to being involved in testing older code? You might be surprised by the answer. Not only can working on older code give you added job security, but it also might expand your skills – enabling you to tackle any testing effort, new or old. Today we’ll be talking with the man sometimes referred to as “the code whisperer.” This Bob Vila of code talks with us about testing legacy applications.

Are you an automation engineer using Selenium and have a requirement that forces you to have to test against IE browsers? If so, I’m guessing you’re probably frustrated with various flaky issues that don’t occur in any other browser except Internet Explorer. If you want to learn the secrets of how to succeed with Selenium IE automation, you’ve come to the right place. Today we’ll be test talking with Jim Evans. Jim is one of the key contributors to the Selenium project. He is also the man behind the Selenium .NET bindings, and the Internet Explorer driver.

Test Automation with CodedUI Do you need to automate both browser-based and window- based applications? Not sure which tool to use? I think one of the most overlooked tools for test automation is Microsoft CodedUI. In this episode Marcel de Vries, author of the PluralSight Course Test Automation with CodedUI, will help you discover all the reasons why CodedUI might be the perfect tool for you to use in the creation of your automation awesomeness.

What do you do when QTP or UFT doesn’t automatically recognize an object in your application? I know how frustrating this can be. Before you give up, in my experience, these are the first ten things you should try/check.

  Does your company practice some wicked test automation anti-patterns that make your skin crawl? Do you feel like you are surrounded by mindless, automation- ignorant zombies? Grab your silver bullets, crucifix and holy water as we take a look at the horror of the top six automation anti-patterns. Discover how to drive a wooden stake into the heart of these evil practices and rid your tests of them forever.  

PhantomJS Cookbook Today I’m inviting you to join me in the test automation kitchen as Rob Friesel, author of the PhantomJS CookBook gets ready to serve up some tasty PhantomJS automation awesomeness. We’ll be sampling some of his popular recipes and discovering how to succeed with PhantomJs.

In this episode you will discover why API testing I so important and why you need to be ahead of the API testing curve sooner rather than later.

Test Management using QAComplete In this episode, Masha Kozinets, Director of Product Management for QAComplete and TestComplete, and Jeffrey Martin, an engineer at SmartBear, go over how a test management tool like QAComplete can help you achieve test automation awesomeness with the ability to plan, organize and schedule all your tests.

How to hack your APIs Are you doing all you can to make sure your APIs are secure? If you haven’t started security testing yet, now is the time - by 2020 there are estimates that there will be over 50 billion objects connected to the Internet. Most of these objects will be using APIs. Not sure where to start — Troy Hunt author of the Pluralsight course Hack Your API First shares with us all you need to know about the basics of API security testing and the tool and technique you will need to quickly get started. Troy’s motto is hack yourself before you get hacked!

Rosie Sherry, the founder of multiple testing communities, takes a rare step into the limelight as she shares her years of wisdom on the philosophy of testing, her thoughts on women in tech and life in general, as well as how to build vibrant testing communities like the Software Testing Club. This podcast is a must-listen for anyone who is involved in, or wants to learn more about, software testing and living life on your own terms.

Removing Test from Test Automation Are you harnessing the full power of test automation? There are many instances in which automation can assist you by saving time in ways you may not even be aware of. Greg shares five underutilized areas where automation can help us. Get the most out of your automation efforts with Greg's tips. The episode with help you hidden opportunities to unleash your automation awesomeness!

The Top Five Non-Selenium Test Tools You Need to Know About Believe it or not, there are test automation tools other then Selenium. If you need to automate something that’s not a browser application, these tools can help. The top five tools (in no particular order) are: Python White Framework Rest-Assured Sikuli Thucydides