Mike C. - Senior QA Architect

Don’t Write Automated Tests

Mike — Tue, 21 May 2024 15:00:00 +0000

Increase quality without sinking money into low-return tests A few years ago, I wrote a blog about ways to approach test automation. I touched on some considerations to help promote a successful automation project; however, I never explicitly dove into when other approaches may be better than automated tests. Specifically, I want to address an anti-pattern…

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Data-Fetching from Oracle SQL Using PowerShell

Mike — Wed, 10 Aug 2022 18:28:43 +0000

Making an Oracle SQL Database and PowerShell Play Together As an SDET, my work often involves dealing with automated tests in different capacities. However, as I like to remind folks, the skillset of an SDET can extend beyond the standard expectations of knowing how to write Selenium tests. Other aspects of the role include fetching…

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A Simple Guide to Crafting Reliable Selectors

Mike — Tue, 10 May 2022 20:29:39 +0000

Improving Automated UI Test Reliability without Rearchitecting Your Solution Early in my automation career, a senior coworker once told me, "writing automated UI (User Interface) tests is the art of crafting good selectors." By "selector," I mean some methodology for finding UI elements on a webpage or application window. Standard methods are CSS Selectors and…

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Demystifying the SDET Unicorn

Mike — Wed, 22 Sep 2021 18:50:37 +0000

You Need an SDET Unicorn: Automation Engineers and Automated UI Tests Won’t Save You. I have a potentially controversial opinion about my job. The popular concept of the Software Development Engineer in Test (SDET) role is broken by modern development practices. I don’t say that lightly. After thirteen years in the industry and eight of…

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Digging for Data in an Oracle SQL Database

Mike — Tue, 30 Jun 2020 15:45:50 +0000

How-To: Finding Columns and Tables in an Oracle SQL Database When Schema Undefined One of the great things about working at IntelliTect is we have the opportunity to get a lot of “cross-pollination” in ideas – even ideas concerning the Oracle SQL database. Recently, I was with my coworker, Chris Finlayson, and we were looking…

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Selenium: Attach to an Existing Chrome Browser with C#

Mike — Tue, 23 Jul 2019 17:17:03 +0000

Verifying with Selenium You’re testing a desktop application with Selenium. How do you verify an item on the page after the browser launches? I recently came up against this use case and couldn’t find a clear answer for C#. Every once in a great while, the need arises to have Selenium communicate to a browser…

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Painless Bug Testing through the Isolation of Variables

Mike — Sat, 09 Mar 2019 15:49:29 +0000

Why It’s Crucial to Catch Your Broken Functionality Before Sending it to Production QA resources waste time through long, protracted test efforts that try to hammer all of their bug testing through the UI at the end of (or after) development. One of the main problems with this approach is that it becomes tough to…

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Deciding to Write a Wrapper

Mike — Tue, 10 Oct 2017 19:44:13 +0000

Wrappers Two things happened around the time I finished up writing a wrapper for Microsoft’s UITestControl class: I wondered if I should do the same thing for a web testing technology like Selenium, and I discovered that at least some discussions exist on if wrappers could be considered an antipattern. As I began to investigate…

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The Feasibility of Test Automation

Mike — Fri, 26 May 2017 22:00:47 +0000

Test Automation With proper tools, technical approaches, and processes, automated testing improves software quality, time to market, and reduces overall costs. Starting early in the development process and maintaining a pragmatic approach will maximize chances of success. However, there is no “one size fits all” approach; proper approaches vary based on team resources and project…

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Part 2: Scrum From a QA Perspective

Mike — Thu, 17 Dec 2015 00:52:11 +0000

Analyzing Scrum Part 2: There is an excellent blog that describes software development as engineering a bridge: Imagine joining an engineering team. You’re excited and full of ideas, probably just out of school and a world of clean, beautiful designs, awe-inspiring in their aesthetic unity of purpose, economy, and strength. You start by meeting Mary,…

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Part 1: Scrum From a QA Perspective

Mike — Thu, 06 Aug 2015 17:49:22 +0000

Fulfilling the Role of a QA Engineer I work QA but am not solely on a QA team; I am a member of a Scrum team. Like the other members, this means I am a part of the development team, I just happen to specialize in QA practices. This is the first position at which…

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