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Hello World for Testers: Basics Part One

Arlene Andrews on September 10, 2019

Photo by slon_dot_pics from Pexels Learning on your own is fun: you have the option to chase a concept until you are satisfied that you fully und...
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Ken Simeon

I fully agree that there isn't a centralized content space for those in the Software Testing / Quality Analyst / Quality Engineer (or SDET) space to learn & grow from. It is a huge gap in our technical information space where individuals currently have to piece mill together solutions by leveraging quick tutorials on how to kickstart test frameworks and/or tools. Then dive into the endless amount of available tutorials around a specific programming language used by the chosen framework or tool. It is a daunting task.

Overall i really like the idea and it gives me a solid direction oh where I will take one of my personal projects.

So if there was a sight available with challenges for those in the software testing spaced, what kinds challenges or tasks would you want to take on?

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Arlene Andrews

I had floated this idea on Twitter a bit ago: and suggested that it be made a part of Test Automation U, by Applitools. But that seems to leave out a section of the testing world, just by where it is.

Once I shared this, I had someone share a link to a small app where you could test log-in, so that's next, once I get through the list for this one!

My wish list for these would be:

  • Able to be tested in most forms (and potential samples of tests in various options)
  • Small enough that they can be done with unit or integration tests
  • A wide selection of testing things (databases, front end, back end, UI, accessibility, logging exercises, tracking tools, APIs, mocking, etc) to work on, at various levels
  • I, personally, don't care for the competition: but this might be a good place to gameify it a bit. Would be great for interoffice competition!
  • A way to record, for yourself, your answers - maybe add a tracking tool to record coverage/resource usage/etc, so YOU can measure YOUR growth.
  • Something that is easily gotten to: there is such a huge percentage (see upcoming blog post elsewhere!) of testers and other devs that are not involved in the social communities: I don't want them left out, or unable to access these.
  • Maybe a special section for bug reports exercises? Following the "DBAJ" (don't be a jerk) rules - let someone put up a bug report, and the get feedback on how it was written? This could be a monitoring headache, so I'd left that out of my ideals for public activities.

And the other dozen or so ideas that I will think of once I hit "send" 🛎

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Ken Simeon

Thanks for jotting down your thoughts & ideas. If you have more, please throw them my way.

As I read over your thoughts, it sounds like you are looking for a self-contained hosted web solution for managing the learning engagement. Kind of like a CodeAcademy or other online tutorial based learning sites. Am I right?

How would you feel about a test automation oriented site that can be self hosted [Running in Docker] and all of the Test Automation Challenges & Lessons are on Github? Then you can use the tools of your choice for the creation of your automation learning journey.

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Arlene Andrews

Does this really allow the community to learn from each other? There's likely the biggest argument with that.

If you have someone that will assist - or can yourself! - look at codewars.com (you need to do a coding challenge to get in). They have a selection of exercises at various levels.

We are testers - we can decide levels ourselves, but sorting them by topic would help make sure that basic single-focus exercises are in a specific area. As for combining them - I'm not sure how it would work to an advantage.

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Ken Simeon

Great point about not being able to easily leverage the knowledge of others if everything was don't standalone. And I'll take a look at codewars.com this weekend.

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Arlene Andrews

Have FUN! That is an interesting site - there are many good people there, doing everything from code golf to "just enough"

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Arlene Andrews

For anyone who was following this: we took it to another forum. I still welcome comments!

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Angie Jones

where's this tweet? I havent seen it

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Arlene Andrews

That is because, lady, you are busy! I shall see if I can dig it out of the archives, and tag you with it.