Nishant Verma

How much automation coverage we should have? Why to automate something when we are not going to modify it in the next 2 iterations? Why not automate only regression scenarios? My automated tests do not catch bugs ! It’s a very complex manual testing stuff and takes me a considerable amount of time to execute it, so I want it to get automated ! Well these are the typical questions which I always get to listen in any meeting which talks about “Automation Coverage”. Why such a bug fuss around it? I have worked on several project which ranges from pure manual testing to pure automation testing. So before starting to create automated test we need to answer few questions. Why are we automating? Is it a deliverable to client? Is it to create a “Safety net”? Is it to ensure sanity of the application before the build formally comes to QA? Is it to reduce manual testing effort? Is it to catch bugs? All of the above Once we answer these questions before rolling out the automatio...

I came back from the background of writing test cases which were categorized in either Positive or Negative test cases. Positive test cases were business flows which may or may not give any result but they will certainly not give any exception or error. Negative test cases are those test cases which were bound to result into some exception or better expressed as error causing scenarios.  Then those positive test cases were prioritized as High/Medium/Low . Finally it used to result in quite a comprehensive test case document. Then it will go through the process of review and few more updates or change of priority etc. Certainly it is a tedious process. Here in ThoughtWorks I got introduced to different way of categorizing test cases called “ Happy/Sad/Bad ”. A test case which results you in a positive result is a Happy path , for e.g. entering proper username and password on login page. A test case which yields no result like entering invalid username and invalid password on a ...

It’s quite some time since I  am learning the process, terminology and environment here in ThoughtWorks. When I entered the company one thing which I found very weird was postcards on wall or board. These walls are called Story walls . There would be some heading and few postcards under them in yellow or red or pink colour. Then around 10 am in the morning I see bunch of people standing next to the wall and speaking one at a time and then they would move some card from one column to another. I wasn’t understanding what is going on ???? But then during my boot camp session I was told about something called stand up meeting and those postcards are nothing but Story cards . To those who are pretty old enough in Testing field and very new to Agile methodology , Story card is a way of representing a small implementable unit of a feature . Even a bug can be a put up in a form of card on the Story Wall under proper column (probably Testing). I have put down a image at the bottom of this...

It’s been 2 weeks into my new office ThoughtWorks Inc . One thing which I felt was the core of  each and every discussions or seminar is Agile and how we practice. Many people across the company with various exposure and experiences spoke on agile with their thoughts and view. I noticed that there is no fixed rule or set of guidelines. I would say agile methodology is still evolving; there are some guidelines which people follow and adopt over a period of time by experimenting and then filtering out the best, which suits the project and easy to adhere. One things which people emphasize here is to read which hardly we do being in IT as we have done enough reading of books (in 4 years of Engineering or 3  Yrs of MCA) which has get us to this platform (Just a joke :P ). But I seriously feel one should read a lot and practice to sustain in this industry. I am sure if not many atleast few techies are doing it and practicing what they have learnt. I will keep on posting things...

Hey friends, recently my gmail account got hacked and I had tough time retrieving my password back. I tried many options like retrieving it from the secondary email account and even using the SMS option. Finally I was able to retrieve it back, but I was not sure if the hacker is still using my account, because the cookie doesn’t get expire unless someone sign out from the session or the auto refresh happens (which I don’t know after how many minutes it happen). One option in Gmail which really helped me out was the “Details” marked in red below, which says from where all (IP) you have logged into the gmail account. Thanks Utkarsh for letting me know this option !

I think I am bit late to discuss “Social Objects”. I was reading a blog where the author was comparing Linkedin with Facebook . Both are public facing web sites where we network, one is professional and the other is personal. One question I have in my mind is “Why do we network”? When I realized, I found that we network to share. This sharing is of personal belongings like Photographs, Status, Feelings and Chat when it comes to social networking site and the same translates to Experiences, Knowledge, Appreciation when it comes to Linkedin. So people actually network to “share” and these sharable objects are nothing but “Social Objects”. So any public facing websites which allow networking should keep in mind the social objects through which they are trying to bond the users.

Wahoo !!!! I am happy ! Very happy ! I wrote an article http://mytestingideas.blogspot.com/2009/10/twitter-allowing-followers-to-be.html on 06th October about Twitter having a feature to allow “grouping” of people I would like to show my tweets to and groping the people I follow. And it is out ! :) The have implemented one part of the feature request. I am happy, looks like someone is listening. :)