The monthly dose for BDD addicts… In September #bdd, #specflow and #cucumber stories from Gojko Adzic, Anna Dolatowska, Steve Baker, Jim Holmes & Dirk Rombauts.
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Dear BDD Addicts,
Have you known that SpecFlow’s birthday was on 10th of September? Yes. And lately SpecFlow has turned 7. It has been a long time, but I still remember how we struggled with making our automated tests more readable and more maintainable by trying to separate the functional description of the application from the automation. We used HTML files to describe the steps and made a tool that converted it into executable Selenium script files. We worked a lot to get it running, but as far as I remember we never finished it. We encountered Cucumber that was also pretty young, and realized that it just did the same, but with a better description file using the Given/When/Then keywords…
After seven years, there are still many teams that struggle with the same problem. Have you seen a good blog post that could help them? Please send it to bddaddict@specsolutions.eu so that I can share.
But now, here is your party-dose for this month…
[Fun] In the beginning…
I have had this on my list for a long time, but somehow it has never fit. If we are anyway talking about the beginnings, then this should also have a place in this month’s issue.
In the beginning there was Cucumber (or the Genesis of SpecFlow) (Steve Baker)
[UI Automation] The questions you should ask yourself before starting with UI automation
I am a big fan of the concept of the context-driven testing school. People tend to accept that each application requires a unique architecture and design, but whenever it comes to testing, they think there are some fix rules and paths to follow. These fixations come from company policies, culture or trends. But here is the reality: every project is different and every project needs some consideration, which testing strategies, tools and techniques should be used.
The article by Jim Holmes gives you a good checklist of questions you should ask yourself before starting with UI test automation.
Getting Started with UI Test Automation (Jim Holmes, @aJimHolmes)
[Process] How many friends have you got?
If you get in touch with BDD, you often meet the requirement discovery technique called “Three Amigos”. The funny name drives us to a very important concept: the different roles of a delivery team should be represented in requirement discussions. Whether it is three (business, dev, tester) or more, it is really up to the project.
Dirk Rombauts dives a bit deeper in the topic in his post. This article also led to an interesting discussion about the origins of the “Three Amigos” term, so make sure you also check out the comment of George Dinwiddie too.
Three Amigos or Three Musketeers? (Dirk Rombauts, @QuestMasterNET)
[Tesing] New ways for testing
Technology, infrastructure and applications are changing. We are in the era of digital transformation where technology sneaks in even to those places, where you would never think they will (like your light bulb). Testers have to cope with such new challenges and keep seeking for new directions. In his article, Gojko Adzic flashes out a few thoughts on the feature of testing, which is definitely worth reading.
Automated testing: back to the future (Gojko Adzic, @gojkoadzic)
[Learn:Cucumber.js] Getting started with Cucumber.js for Web UI automation
Cucumber.js is a node.js implementation of cucumber that can be used for node.js applications, by testing them through their javascript API. However, it can also be used for Web UI automation, through the WebdriverIO infrastructure. The post by Anna Dolatowska gives a quick intro for this scenario using a page object and Chai assertions.
BDD tests for NodeJS apps with WebdriverIO and Cucumber (Anna Dolatowska, @_QofA_)
