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My last article raised an interesting discussion whether you should see tests more as documentation or more as specification. I agree that they can contribute to both of them, but I still think tests are just - tests... There were also complaints about my statement that testing often becomes tedious work which nobody likes. Also here I agree, that techniques like TDD can help you to structure your code and make sure you code exactly what is needed by writing the tests, but the result of the process will still be a class which needs to be tested somehow. So I have set up another small challenge to show how the visual approach featured by MagicTest helps to make testing a breeze. As you know, traditional assertion-based test frameworks like TestNG or JUnit force us to include the expected results in the test code. Where this may be more or less suitable for simple tests (like in the previous article), it quickly becomes cumbersome if the test handles complex objects or voluminous data. The Task We must test the method createEvenOddTable() (see appended ) with the following functionality: Create HTML table (elements table, tr, td) with specified number of data rows and columns. An additional row will be added to store header information (element th). An additional column will be added which contains the row number (element th) The rows will have attribute class set to "head", "even", or "odd" for easy styling. Both the specification (the 4 lines above) and the source code itself (25 lines) are short and simple to understand, so any experienced developer will write this method in a few minutes. So what's the problem with testing this method? We will see if we look at how MagicTest handles this case. The Magic Test The MagicTest for this method looks like this: public class HtmlTableTest { @Trace public void testCreateEvenOddTable() { HtmlTable.createEvenOddTable(4, 3); } @Formatter(outputType=OutputType.TEXT) public static String formatElement(Element elem) { XMLOutputter serializer = new XMLOutputter(); serializer.setFormat(Format.getPrettyFormat()); return serializer.outputString(elem); } } Some details: We use the @Trace annotation to automatically capture information about calls to the method under test. We rely on naming conventions, so the method HtmlTable.createEvenOddTable() is tested by HtmlTableTest.testCreateEvenOddTable(). Per default, MagicTest uses the toString() method to report the parameter and return values. As the Element's toString() method returns only its name, we have to define a custom @Formatter to get the full XML tree. If we run the test, we get the following report: If we look at the XML element tree in the report, we can see all the details which a complete test should cover: correct nesting of elements (table, tr, td), correct header line, correct line numbers, correct number of rows, correct number of cells for each row, correct class attribute for each row, etc. But even if you end up with a bunch of lengthy assert statements like assert("head".equals(((Element) elem.getChildren("tr").get(0)).getAttributeValue("class"))); which tests for the correct class attribute, this will not be enough: you should also test the absence of the class attribute for all cells except the first ones in each row. So yes, for a sound test you must actually verify the whole XML tree - and this is exactly the information which MagicTest shows you for confirmation. Let the Challenge Begin To run the test yourself, you will need to download the MagicTest Eclipse plug-in. Copy it into the Eclipse dropins folder and restart Eclipse. Then download the attached Eclipse project and import it into your workspace. Run the test class TagsTest by executing Run As / MagicTest. After the first run, the test report will show up and all test steps will be red. This is the MagicTest way of telling you that a step has failed. In our case, the steps just fail because MagicTest simply does not know anything about the expected result. So we carefully check the output and confirm its correctness by clicking on the save button. Now all steps are green - and the test is successful. You have now seen how efficiently this test can be realized using MagicTest - it even looked like fun. Does your test tool accept the challenge? How many minutes and lines does it take you to write the test? I'm looking forward to your contributions! Appendix: Listing HtmlTable /** * Create HTML table (elements table, tr, td) with specified number of data rows and columns. * An additional row will be added to store header information (element th). * An additional column will be added which contains the row number (element th) * The rows will have attribute class set to "head", "even", or "odd" for easy styling. * * @param rows number of rows * @param cols number of column * @return XML element containing the HTML table */ public static Element createEvenOddTable(int rows, int cols) { Element table = new Element("table"); for (int r=0; r 0) { td.setText(Integer.toString(r)); } } } return table; }
You don't generally hear that you should develop for Android first, but even if you go iOS first, Android comes second. That's the traditional wisdom, anyways. According to Semil Shah on Haywire, though, "iOS first" is an understatement. It should be iOS first, and Android in the distant future, if at all. Shah is fairly direct with his point of view: The most common trap here is the early iOS app which gets some buzz. All of a sudden, the founders hear “When are you building for Android?” The natural, enthusiastic response to sincere requests of the Android chorus is to go ahead and build for Android and seek more downloads, more growth, more revenue. I have a different view though. The proper response is: “No. Buy an iPhone.” Shah's reasoning is presented in three central arguments: Android's fragmentation problem is too much for small teams iOS users have all the money (and their numbers are growing) Future Apple hardware (iPhone 5c, for example) may level the playing field And these are some interesting thoughts. The third point in particular is one you don't hear often - one of the big selling points of Android as a development platform is the massive reach, which is a product of the sheer number of phones in consumers' hands. After all, iOS traditionally has a higher barrier of entry when it comes to economics. On the other hand, we've already seen some counterarguments to some of these points. For example, if you ask Nick Bradbury, fragmentation is a completely overblown problem, and according to Danny Roa, there's not really that much point to supporting older devices in the first place. Similarly, Kevin Quach suggests that the common notions surrounding Android's monetization opportunities - that they're not there, basically, at least compared to iOS - are bunk as well. In other words, the "iOS first" vs. "Android first" argument may not be so clear in either direction. Check out Shah's full article for all the details.
So affirms Sencha, in the latest installment of their HTML5 developer scorecards series. Four-sentence version: After putting the Galaxy Nexus through our test wringer, we can say that Ice Cream Sandwich is a major step for the Android browser. However, it still falls short of iOS 5. It’s a solid browser for normal page browsing and it adds major new features that support most of the HTML5 spec. It also has taken a big step forward in correctness of rendering, which is a welcome change for people who want to push their mobile browsers to the limit. The most exciting new feature support, in Sencha's opinion: tons of CSS3, including the more nativey-slick, like animations, refletions, transformations, and transitions. Some specific missing features: Web Workers Web Sockets WebGL datetime and range input types overflow-scrolling Shared Workers The device Sencha used was a Samsung Galaxy Nexus, which meant that some performance and zoom issues might tell you as much about the hardware as about the OS. But the biggest rendering improvement: rendering was simply correct. One way Ice Cream Sandwich beat iOS 5? Embedded inline HTML5 video. They actually played inline on the Galaxy Nexus, in Sencha's tests; they didn't on the iPad and iPhone running iOS 5. Here's Sencha's rather glowing closing summary: In summary, the Galaxy Nexus and Ice Cream Sandwich are a major step forward for the Android platform. Feature by feature, HTML5 support has gotten much better, rendering has become more accurate, and performance has gotten much faster. Although still behind the current HTML5 gold standard of iOS5, Android 4.0 is night and day compared to previous versions. That 'night and day' is pretty strong, and definitely great news for HTML5 developers. If you're developing HTML5 apps for mobile, you should probably read the full report, which includes JavaScript performance numbers via SunSpider, Acid3 scores, and detailed results of Sencha's own touch-specific test suite.
Sometimes, Android development is terrible. This recent blog post by Tony Cosentini discusses some of the more common and recognizable pain points in Android development, and how to get around them. Consentini concedes that Android development has been improving lately, pointing to developments like Android Studio and its Gradle build system, but there are still problems. In particular, he focuses on the following: Activities that are treated like view controllers The fragility of intents Problematic unit testing And for each, he provides a solution. For example, he points to Square as a useful source for a number of Android-simplifying solutions. Take a look at the full post for more ideas on how to solve some of the basic frustrations in Android development.
So, Android Studio exists. While there are a number of fixes for the less-than-graceful aspects of Android development in Eclipse - Genymotion, right? - some are moving to Android Studio for a more stream-lined approach. This recent post from MeetMe's engineering blog details Bill Donahue's switch from Eclipse to Android Studio, and he has some pretty strong feelings about it. He says - and this is his own emphasis - the following: I will never go back to Eclipse Donahue then explains the key differences as he sees them. First he makes a list of complaints about Eclipse - constant refreshing, awkward UI building, hogging RAM, and so on - followed by a list of the improvements found in Android Studio, such as full-program themes, new UI tools, better stability and performance, and more. He does point to a couple of hiccups, such as the switch to a Gradle build, but it's more of a thing you're going to have to learn than an issue with Android Studio. Check out Donahue's full post for more details on the switch and the little things Android Studio does to make it more comfortable.
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