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A Story of One Young Mentee (Remote) Learning E2E Test Automation
A Quiet Achiever: Slow and Steady wins the game.
About one month ago, my best friend Julie (in Sydney) contacted me about her nephew, who had just come to Australia to study for an IT Master's degree. During the conversation, I suggested learning a bit of End-to-End Test Automation, which could help improve his academic score in Uni Assignments.
My daughter is still studying for an Honours degree part-time. Since two years ago, whenever possible, she has demonstrated her assignment work using End-to-End Automation (raw Selenium/Appium). Every time, with good results. The lecturers and tutors were deeply impressed. For two courses, the lecturers offered some kinds of awards, such as “Most Innovative” and “Best Implemented”. The recipients of these awards received full marks on their assignments. My daughter always got the awards, mostly by the WOW effect of End-to-End demonstration via UI, using automation scripts. (see article, Automation Assist, Part 1: Showcase)
Julie was interested and arranged a Zoom session with Aaron, her nephew. I basically did a “30-minute Test Automation Coaching for $1” (available for anyone, once. Of course, for my best friend, no need to pay $1).
When I was about to show writing the first Selenium test, Aaron said, “Uncle Zhimin, do you mind that I record the session. So I can re-watch”. I replied, “Sure”.
After the session, I recommend the following
- reading my ebook “Practical Web Test Automation with Selenium WebDriver”
(I sent her a copy.) - If Aaron is interested, do the exercises on the “Selenium Training Workbook”
The first seven episodes are free. The remaining ones require $50 a year (or $5/month) subscription to my Substack Newsletter.
Upon receiving my email, Julie immediately paid $50 for the Substack subscription. I thought it was a just gesture, to thank for my time.
Frankly, I had low expectations as so many people (with fancy job titles) contacted me, but did not follow my advice: doing hands-on E2E testing exercises. (See my article, Doer vs. Talker in End-to-End Test Automation).
