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Hey everyone!
As mentioned in my closing blog post for EuroSTAR https://huddle.eurostarsoftwaretesting.com/one-ticket-to-maastricht-please-eurostar-2014-review/ I secured a new position after the conference which is soon to start.
One thing that I asked for was a list of tools the company currently uses in their Software Engineer in Test positions so that if I spotted any gaps in my knowledge, I could take steps to get up to speed before joining. They got back to me with the following list and I must say I was thrilled:
- Robot
- Sauce Labs
- Selenium
- PyCharm
- SQL Server
- Git
They also mentioned a few other tools which might be coming into the mix so I had a look and again they’re at the bleeding edge.
By comparison in my old position there was no set of core tools used, we were pretty much left to our own devices, in many cases I had to front up for software I wished to use, rather than the company doing so. A list for my time spent there might look like:
- HP UFT
- HP ALM
- JIRA
- SQL Server
- Visual studio
I’m not sure if many people here have experiences with HP UFT but I found it to be horribly clunky and unpredictable. I’m sure people would point to test design/test reliability but this was not the case with normally reliable tests suddenly bugging out because the object repository has decided it no longer recognises something for no good reason as far as I was concerned. I’m very much looking forward to getting my hands on Selenium properly!
For me the difference between the lists is basically old v new. Whether right or wrong I feel like my new position involves finding the right tools for the job and integrating them into the process, whereas the old position was making the best with what you had or finding something free.
So what is your current core tool list at work? Have you ever been lumbered with a nightmare list or felt like you’ve got the list of dreams?
Are there any tools you think I’m missing?
Thanks,
Nick
If I compare that to my list it is quite different. But it is because I’m doing VPN related testing, so my tools are those which can set my environment up’n’running quickly.
* Twiki for test cases and reporting
* QEMU & KVM for virtual environments
* OpenVSwitch for virtual networking
* Ruby for test automation
* tcpdump for network traffic analyze
* Python for own scripts
* Shell scripts
* Libre Office
* Text editor
* Git for version control
* Plenty of other tools which I can use to test different protocols like ftp, http, https, SIP, …And then the most important tools:
* Color pens
* PaperWith them I create mind maps and other things which are helping me at the test planning.
And at the past projects where I’ve been at web application testing e.g.:
* Robot Framework
* Python
* SeleniumList of dreams depends what kind of system I am testing. But one which I’d really like to avoid is HP Quality Center. Its only purpose is to prevent testers to do testing. 😉
Hey Teemu,
sorry for the delayed reply, I had a weekend of travelling unfortunately!
your list sounds pretty damn technical and interesting, what would you say your favourite tool was to get to grips with?
Mind mapping is something I’ve rarely used but I’m keen to start using it more, I used it in my interview to the latest job as a framework for things I wanted to consider and it seemed to go down really well. Hopefully I can develop this much further!
How did you find Robot to work with? I was tempted to learn lots about it as its entirely new to me but I decided to keep a fresh perspective for going into training on the job.
With you on HP Quality Center!
Here is a good webinar on testing tools that was on EuroSTAR a few years ago. It’s by Graham Thomas, titled “10 Great but now Overlooked (Testing) Tools“.
Also I never realised you can have so many tools. I imagine there is a lot more than those listed too.
Nick
My toolkit is constantly changing – I list the tools that I find most useful here A selection of testing tools
This prompted a pretty interesting discussion on STC a while back – Whats in your toolkit
I find that you build knowledge of tools through experience, and from talking to other testers. To be honest though, there’s no substitute for a notebook, Excel and a clear head. Give me those and I’m pretty much good to go.
Adam
@adampknightThe most exciting part of my tool list has been QEMU+KVM+OpenVSwitch combination. It has opened totally new ways to see virtualization at test environment creation. At network product testing the different network configurations are unlimited. And with these tool we can have flexible virtual testing environment inside the single computer. (Or we can have even multiple test environments.)
I like Robot Framework. I started to use it about 7 years ago and found that its flexibility is wonderful. At one project we used it to test asynchronous embedded system which were quite challenging. But we managed to do it. And it is wonderful for web application testing. You can integrate it easily even with Java code. At one web project developers had plenty of code for database initialization and stuff like that. So instead of using native Python interpreter I used JPython and integrated developers’ code to my tests.
I am technical guy. 😀 And that’s why I am usually at highly technical projects. So my tools are very technical.
In my experience core testing tool always change with your working environment or product under test. Sometime need find new testing tools and methods to test new technology products.
Web browser::
ATDD In CI – Agile, Acceptance Test Driven Development & BDD: Ruby + Cucumber + Selenium + Ruby Mine Editor.
Mobile::
Mobile cloud services for device coverage
Android + Espresso
IOS(Xcode)Log reporting tools & apps:::
Debuggers – Fiddler, Wireshark, Android Debug Bridge.. Etc.. Etc,,,I’m sad to say that even though i work fir a multinational company my core toolset is word, excel and Sharepoint.
Partly because I’m a team of one doing UAT and partly because I’m finding it difficult to find a toolset we can host and can be expressed to the external customers and internal customers that is also accessible by the team in India where security and external access is tightly locked down.
I’ve found we have rational quality manager and there are people willing to help me over come the challenges, so i might soon get a real tool.
Hello to everyone!
This sure is a very interesting discussion.
Recently have a I changed to a new job, to a company which mainly focuses on providing solutions to companies in the Mobile business, such as Carriers. The main line of work is aimed at building API’s and plenty of backend work, so that posed a challenge (which, I must say, was willingly accepted) and also, it required a shift in terms of thought for testing.
Even though the list I’ll be sharing may not be as long as that of previous comments, some of them were a challenge at the beginning, particularly the first two ones:
– SoapUI + LoadUI. Rarely had I had to use them in former jobs.
– JMeter. I had “played” with the tool on my own for some time whilst learning about Performance, but until now, I hadn’t had the chance of actually making a difference with it in a project– TestLink
– Jira for Scrum, Kanban, Stories and Bugs, among many other features. They do have the SBET plugin available, though none is allowed to use it.
– Confluence
– Device Anywhere
– GitBucket
– Sequel Pro for MySQL
– DevCenter for NoSQL
– RabbitMQ
– ActiveMQ
– PHP
– JavaNowadays, provided I haven’t forgotten any tool, that sums up the current tool set.
What tools have you used? Or even better, what tools would you like to start using provided you had the chance?
¡Have a great weekend!
-Andrés
Hi all,
wow I see some overlap but also some differences! I guess it is all context specific!
Tools:
Freemind – for mind mapping a system and its features
Google drive – for collaboration
Git
Sourcetree
SoapUI
Postman
RestClient
Workbench for MySQL
Groovy
text editor
developer tools F12
JIRA
Confluence
Bitbucket
Google hangouts
Jmeter
command prompt
Libra office
twitter
My brain! 🙂
pen and paper
Virtual machinesI would love to have the time and money to try some other tools, such as python for scripts to aid automation checking, penetration/security testing tools.
@Kim you sure shared a great list as well!
And among them all, the three which I enjoy the most are:
– Pen and paper for I like to mindmap and sketch ideas, draw diagrams and such, I am very visual, and of course, the most important of them all,
– One’s brains 🙂Provided you had the time and money, and apart from the tools which you have already mentioned, what other tools would you like trying?
What about the rest of the people? What tools would you like to include in your utility belt?
I forgot one important thing: Whiteboard. See the image. I’m thinking about having 15min session with other testers at our office and the drawing is about the impact of bugs to the profits and sales.
Not only is the drawing about the impact very self-explanatory on the matter, but also very amusing 🙂
Thank you for sharing it!
I’m currently doing straightforward functional testing, so my toolkit is:
Jira
Confluence (Wiki)
Balsamiq
Selenium/Webdriver
SQL Server Profiler
Powershell
SysInternals tools (Procmon, etc)
In-house automated testing tool
MS Excel VBA
MS Viso (for diagrams)The companies I’ve worked for in the past include Julius Baer, Credit Suisse, Royal Bank of Canada, HSBC, J.P. Morgan, RBS, Deutsche Bank — plus a bunch of smaller companies like AHL / Man Investments, CMC Markets and Psion (as in … yeah, Psion…) Not once did I ever sign-up as dedicated “tester” but somehow it was always unavoidable. Nearly all places like @Stephen used Word, Excel, SharePoint and .. “brain” plus some more fashionable items like JIRA of late. However, more recently, I have had far more success working in a Test-Driven Development role using a bespoke tool (called Tao) — I hope to create a few blogs on that later 🙂
I like Robot Framework. I started to use it about 7 years ago and found that its flexibility is wonderful. At one project we used it to test asynchronous embedded system which were quite challenging. But we managed to do it. And it is wonderful for web application testing. You can integrate it easily even with Java code. At one web project developers had plenty of code for database initialization and stuff like that. So instead of using native Python interpreter I used JPython and integrated developers’ code to my tests.
I am technical guy.
And that’s why I am usually at highly technical projects. So my tools are very technical.
Apologies for disappearing off the radar all!
Teemu, given you’re so technical, I’m surprised to hear good reports of Robot Framework! Granted I’m only a few weeks in of using it at a shallow level but I’m not enjoying it. To me its primary use case is when you have business users testing and you want them to be able to write their own tests. However in my company the testers are using it to write tests and frankly I find it awful. No debugging, an unneccessary level of complication/abstraction where there is not need, keywords (eww)
Were your team using it to build tests yourselves or building the framework out for customers to use?
Nick, I always judge jobs (and resumes) by tool lists. Tools like git & python rank high, and tools like HP QC/ALM set off alarm bells.
Nick, I always judge jobs (and resumes) by tool lists. Tools like git & python rank high, and tools like HP QC/ALM set off alarm bells.
I couldn’t agree more Aaron. Therefore when I see the likes of HP ALM, although I see a huge investment, its a very wasteful one as free tools by comparison are not 300k lesser in value. The difference is when you see a place with git/python/selenium I know they’re making smart business and engineering decisions without needing to get too far into the hiring process. It may be slightly different for me as I’m most interested in automation, so engineering decisions have a heavy weighting in my interests to work somewhere
Has this list changed for anyone on the meantime? There are a lot more tools to choose from now than there was even two years ago though I think the same ones are just as popular?
I am not much into automation, so my set of tools is a bit different from the rest. Here are the 3 that I use the most daily
Asana – For managing my projects and tasks
Excel VBA – For automating most of my manual tasks
gyazo – Useful to show the developer what is happening
There are many testing tools and there specification listed below:
1. Test management tool support:
2. Static testing tool support:
3. Test specification tool support:
4. Test execution and logging tool support:
you can also check in detail here http://crbtech.in/Testing/testing-tools-classification/
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