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If you were to give advice to a new developer in a team about software testing, what advice would you give? Are there essentials that they should know that would make their time as a developer much easier?
Hi,
when I was asked to introduce testing to developers, I’ve prepared a presentation with short introduction to testing basics: reasons why testing is required, what is the cost of bugs in different Project phases, testing levels, testing techniques (both white-box and black-box), We’ve taken 1-2 examples for every black-box testing technique from our application, also I’ve prepared a list of tips which could be usefull for self testing.
If you don’t have much time to prepare such a presentation, you can search for such in internet, I saw some nice ones.I think I would have mentioned some key points like:
1. Domain of the Application
2. Importance of Bug Free Application
3. Testing scopes like: Unit Test, UI Automation Test etc.Hii Daragh ,
First of all you need to accept the fact that your code contains defects.
That’s always true. But that doesn’t always mean that you’ve messed up. Sometimes defects come from business requirements or some 3rd party libraries, etc. So – don’t treat defects like something personal.Try to work in combination with testers. If you believe that something needs to be checked – you can always ask test team to do that. Usually we (testers) appreciate such testing thoughts a lot, especially if these thoughts have some difficult technical reason and we most probably would miss that.
If your project permits – try to write unit tests, it can’t actually replace test team, but can save their time.
And maybe the last thing – all of us (Dev, QA, BA, PM, etc.) have one big goal – write good software, and we should stick together to reach that.Another important thing would be to think like an end user
As a developer, you know what the application should do or rather what is does. So, a developer may tend to test in those lines only
So, first of all you should forget that you have written the code and just think of ways an end-user would use the system or maybe a tester would try to break the systemMy advice for developer, not necessarily a Junior: “Testers are your friends”
I said this to a colleague developer in a moment when he was starting to be defensive because of the project pressure and the large number of bugs that were reported. And it helped. It released the tension,
I wanted my colleague developer to understand that he should regard testers as friends who watch over his work. Because if testers don’t report the bugs, they eventually reach the users and the stakeholders which results in a way more dangerous situation for the developer (than having just a couple of bugs raised in Jira or any issue tracking system).
Cheers!
AndreiI would consider important to reformulate the question to contemplate implementers besides developers.
Here are some recommendations I would give them:
– Think of the system as a whole and not just the piece of code being developed or implemented.
– Know the system requirements (regulatory, functional and non-functional) “whole picture”.
– Know the users, if possible, and try to “wear their shoes”.
– Concern to properly document their thoughts and work, especially the less obvious.
– Regularly switch places with testers.As a Software Tester I want to see myself as developers as well because I am also someone who is developing the solution. But I know you by developer you mean coder or programmer who are writing code to build the solution. And I will do the same below too.
Key points of Testing developer need to know according to me,
1. Ship fast. I believe that developers should make their work available for the tester as soon as possible. Of course they can test their own work but I feel that is not needed because testers are there to test and developers are doing testers work. And I do not see how that is adding value to the solution.
2. Answering questions and be informative about it. I encourage developers to answer questions asked by testers. They need to be willing for it because at the end of the day testers are assisting developers work quality.
3. Achieving the goal. Tester or developer all are working to achieve the same goal, delivering the solution with quality in time. Developers need to have this in their mind to be a little bit more supportive with testers.
4. Understanding the user. At the end of the day its all about the user. Developers and testers are working together to provide a solution for the user. If users not feel good about using the solution for their purpose than nothing fits. Getting in the shoe of users is not only testers responsibility, it is also same for developers.
5. Communication. Communication is the key to achieve more in less time. Not only communicating with testers, also with other developers, manager, client etc. Developers need feel free to communicate with anybody at any point for confusion or clarification or to inform or anything. It will add value to their work.
Well I know its not all, please feel free to add more. But to me above points are critical.
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