A late realization from a veteran Software Engineer, but better than never. — I have worked as a Software Contractor for over 20 years, with a relatively good income. Nevertheless, for my family, which relies on a single income (and many others can relate), it has felt like a rat race. Housing The Australian Government makes housing more expensive while politicians yell “improving house…

A typical software engineer’s thinking, violates the principle of “Black-box/White-box testing”, causes many issues and introduces limitations. — On one E2E Test Automation rescue mission, I asked the test engineer to show me how he typically runs an automated E2E test. It took him a minute or so to fiddle with a couple of configuration files before triggering a run. Then, I said, “This was on the dev…

Not worrying about work and with some passive income during vacation. — This is not a technical article, but it might interest some IT professionals. I started working as a contractor Software Engineer in 2000. As the only income earner, with two young children and no parent/relatives around, financial stress has been there (paying for my son’s treatment consumed a large percentage…

The reason is simply a lack of capability. Good news: Motivated QA engineers can learn. — The article aims to address a frequently asked question, much like the one I received earlier this morning:

It is too complex and missing key features of CT. I have been using BuildWise to manage automated UI test execution for ~10 years. — I am a big fan of Selenium WebDriver. I have been practising/coaching web test automation using raw Selenium WebDriver since 2011 (yes, when it was first released). Also, I published six books on Selenium, including “Practical Web Test Automation with Selenium WebDriver” and the Selenium WebDriver Recipes series.

Don’t get fooled by your internal technical advisors. — Let’s start with a short video of Steve Jobs, the best IT Executive ever. “as where the enterprise market, it’s not so simple. The people that use the products don’t decide for themselves, and the people that make those decisions sometimes are confused. (audience laughed and clapped)” — Steve…

From a fear-writing person (since childhood) to an accomplished author and top technical writer in software testing: a transformative journey. — This article deviates quite a bit from my usual topics: Test Automation and Continuous Testing. I think it’s still related. Below is from Rework, a best-selling software development book.

Should focus on learning, instead, at least initially. — Non-Medium-Members: Read this article for free on Vocal. Yesterday, I had a 30-minute Test Automation Coaching session (for $1, limited to one per month, once per user) with one motivated automated tester, from Africa. It is my first time talking to an African automated tester, via Zoom. (I had one…

Mostly wasteful activity. QA engineers focus on Automated E2E UI Functional Regression Testing, as should be. — Non-Medium-Members: You can view this article free on Vocal. A few weeks ago, one mentee asked me, “What is Visual Testing?”. I replied, “Did someone want to showcase Visual Testing at work, for regression testing? If so, let me guess, he or she is a developer. ” The mentee said…