Facebook and I Shared a Similar Approach to E2E Test Automation and Continuous Testing

Product Strategy: “Release Early; Release Often”; Watir -> Selenium WebDriver; Developed own IDE and Continuous Testing Server; Using Mac Minis in the on-premise parallel testing lab.

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My professional experience never intersected with Facebook, and I’ve never met anyone who worked there (though I do have a Facebook account, with zero posts so far). Until June 20, 2015, I was completely unaware of how Facebook approached E2E test automation and Continuous Testing. That changed when I came across an excellent presentation on YouTube from the F8 Developer Conference, where Katie Coons shared insights on how Facebook implements E2E test automation and CI.

Please note: the claim of “Similar” is based on Facebook’s published practices in 2015. I don’t know how Facebook does E2E test automation or Continuous Testing now, frankly, I am not that interested. Why? Because my open and independently-developed approach (including tools) has been highly effective for me over the past 18 years, barely changed.

By that time, I had already been working on E2E test automation and Continuous Testing for 10 years and had also developed a few side-hustle apps. To my surprise, I realized Facebook’s approach shared many similarities with my own practices.

Table of contents:
· Product Strategy: “Release Early; Release Often”
· Started with Watir
· Upgrade to Selenium WebDriver
· Developed IDE-like tool to support better Scripting E2E tests
· Developed a Continuous Testing Server to support executing automated E2E tests
· Used Mac Minis in the Test Lab
· You can use TestWise and BuildWise free

Product Strategy: “Release Early; Release Often”

It all began with Product Strategy. As a software solopreneur, the primary reason I embraced end-to-end (UI) test automation…