Test EarlyTest EarlyThis blog is written by the employees of Stelligent Incorporated. We are passionate about building software quality into the development process using the right tools and processes for the occasion. We seek to make code more defect-resistant and enjo Articles
What do you mean Microsoft Team System doesn?t support Continuous Integrati
2007-02-16 06:19:01 Okay, okay…Team Foundation Build has no built-in support for continuous integration, but even Khushboo Sharan, Program Manager, Visual Studio Team System acknowledges the advantages of Continuous Integration and explains how he sees Continuous Integration Using Team Foundation Build working. More About: Microsoft , Port , What , Hat
Booing IE automation
2007-02-11 18:16:02 Boo is statically typed language for the .NET platform inspired by Python– with Boo, you can write functioning .NET applications quickly. If you have a handle on Python or even VB, then picking up Boo is anything but scary. Boo has a host of features including built in Regular Expressions, collections, and closures; in fact, even though it is Pythonic in nature, it reminds me a lot of Groovy in that the language is unique to itself and not a cousin of some other language like Jython is Python or JRuby is to Ruby. Recently, I found myself needing to script out some functional tests via Internet Explorer. I considered using Watir; however, I wanted to see what I could knock out with Boo due to its close integration with the Windows platform. As it turns out, Boo’s closeness to Windows makes IE automation so easy it’s almost…well, frightening. The only, err….terrifying aspect of using IE automation in Boo is learning mshtml, which isn’t as documented... More About: Auto , Automation
Testing GUI applications with TestNG
2007-01-29 06:06:05 Developer testing of GUIs, like those written in Swing for example, have always been a challenge. Regardless of how a particular GUI is coded, ascertaining testing plug-in points and determining how to structure a particular test case presents barriers that often force one to postpone testing until a more manual effort can be conducted. As I mentioned a few months ago, there are a number of frameworks available that facilitate testing various GUI frameworks; however, of late, I have found that one particular framework for testing Java GUIs stands out– testng-abbot. While the framework is fairly new and lacking of a lot of documentation, the features found in the latest version make testing a GUI (either AWT or Swing) quite easy. For example, testing the following scenario takes one test case and an associated fixture. Below is a sample Swing GUI that excepts two parameters representing a Widget’s name and weight. In a sunny day scenario, if a user enters a valid weight ... More About: Applications , Cat , Testing , With , Sting
I like refactoring and I can not lie
2007-01-25 18:04:01 [Intro] Oh my goodness. Paul, look at that code. It’s so big. *scoff* It looks like one of those Fortran guys wrote it But, y’know, who understands those Fortran guys? *scoff* They only write that stuff because it looks like job security, ‘kay? I mean, that method, it’s just so big. *scoff*I can’t believe it’s so complex, it’s just out there I mean, it’s gross. Look! It’s just so…legacy [Sir Refactor-a-Lot] I like refactoring and I can not lie You other coders can’t deny That when a method uses too much space And its complexity is staring you in the face You get stung Wanna extract that stuff Cuz you know testin’s gonna be tough Deep in the logic it’s glaring I’m hooked and I can’t stop staring Oh, man I wanna get fixn’ And make that logic smaller My metrics tried to warn me But that mess its got Exploited that code’s frailty Ooh, extract method isolates that logic and makes testi... More About: Fact , Ring , Tori , Like , Factor
4 steps to FxCop-NAnt nirvana
2007-01-25 18:04:01 FxCop is an easy to use static analysis tool, which scans .NET assemblies for violations to pre-defined rules (like naming conventions, security, etc)– while it is now bundled with VSTS, there are still plenty of NAnt-loving shops out there. If your .NET project uses NAnt as a build system and you’re looking for a quick mechanism to objectively look at your code base, then follow these four easy steps for FxCop-NAnt nirvana. First, you must download NAntContrib, which is a series of tasks not yet included in the core NAnt distribution. Inside this .dll are a series of tasks including fxcop, which of course, runs FxCop (assuming FxCopCmd.exe is in your PATH). The NAntContrib project, by the way, has a host of tasks for working with various CM systems like Perforce, Subversion, and ClearCase to name a few. Next, download FxCop, install it, and ensure that FxCopCmd.exe is in your PATH. Installing FxCop provides a rather nice GUI that can be run outside of a particular build... More About: Nirvana , Step , Steps
SD Times Web Seminars
2007-01-25 18:04:01 If you need a great source of problem-solving techniques and tips, best practices and up-to-date product information, check out BZ Media?s Web Semi nar s . Hosted by SD Time s and Software Test & Performance, these seminars offer real-time solutions to your software development problems. Here’s a sample of what’s coming up: Continuous Integrated Testing for .NET: What’s In It For You? TUESDAY, January 23, 2007 2:00 pm Eastern | 11:00 am Pacific You already know that it’s better, faster and cheaper to fix bugs early in your application development cycles. But the last thing you need is more work in your busy day. Enter Continuous Integrated Testing (CIT), an approach that combines development and testing practices and tools to let you test while you build, increasing quality and saving you time. Requirements-Driven Testing: The Journey From Business Needs To Test and User Acceptance TUESDAY, Feb. 6 2:00 pm Eastern | 11:00 am Pacific Learn concrete techniq... More About: Times
CruiseControl 2.6 released
2007-01-25 18:04:01 CruiseControl released a new version last week. There are some interesting new features: The Windows installer provides an option to install CruiseControl as a service New RakeBuilder tag A chart that displays Checkstyle, PMD and JavaDoc violations — over time I also noticed that CruiseControl is no longer providing support for Java 1.3. 1.4 is the new minimum JDK. These are exciting new features. I’ll provide more after I get a chance to try them out. More About: Released , Release , Cruise , Lease
Improving code with Eclipse plugins
2007-01-25 18:04:01 Paul Duvall published an article, Improving code with Eclipse plugins, the fifth installment of his “Automation for the people” series by IBM developerWorks, where he provides examples of installing, configuring, and using static analysis Eclipse plugins focused on helping developers in key areas such as: Coding standards Code duplication Code coverage Dependency analysis Complexity monitoring These code analysis areas can be uncovered with five helpful plugins: CheckStyle: For coding standards PMD’s CPD: Enables discovering code duplication Coverlipse: Measures code coverage JDepend: Provides dependency analysis Eclipse Metrics plugin: Effectively spots complexity Regardless if you chose one of the profiled tools or other Eclipse plugins, incorporating them into your work environment will contribute to real-time visual feedback on the state of the quality of your code so that you may prevent problems early in the development life cycle. More About: Plugins , With , Plugin , Clip
Making JUnit 4 backwards compatible
2007-01-25 18:04:01 Because JUnit 4’s testing model has fundamentally changed due to the introduction of Java 5 annotations, many people have found that the extensive framework of runners, like Ant’s venerable junit task, don’t work. For example, running the following JUnit 4 test in Ant (pre 1.7) will yield some interesting results. import static org.junit.Assert.assertEquals; import org.junit.Test; public class SimpleTest { @Test public void verifySimpleAssert(){ assertEquals("simple test", "simple test"); } } Using the junit task in Ant yields the following errors: [junit] Running test.com.acme.SimpleTest [junit] Tests run: 1, Failures: 1, Errors: 0, Time elapsed: 0.047 sec [junit] Testsuite: test.com.acme.SimpleTest [junit] Tests run: 1, Failures: 1, Errors: 0, Time elapsed: 0.047 sec [junit] Testcase: warning took 0.016 sec [junit] FAILED [junit] No tests found in test.com.acme.SimpleTest [junit] junit.framework.AssertionFailedError: No tests found in test.com.acm... More About: Comp , War , Back , King , Ward
Out of the box test categorization in JUnit 4
2007-01-25 18:04:01 The newest version of JUnit does not contain a category annotation, like its rival Test NG or its distant cousin NUnit; however, this doesn’t mean you can’t easily categorize your tests. Much like pre-JUnit 4, the solution involves the use of suites; however, as anyone who is actually using JUnit 4 knows, suites, as we used to them, are history– they’ve been replaced with annotations. Briefly, in JUnit 4, suites have been replaced by two annotations: @RunWith and @SuiteClasses. The @RunWith annotation requires it be set to the Suite class and then the @SuiteClasses annotation accepts a list of class to be run. It is this annotation that facilitates test categorization– for example, to run all unit tests, you would list them all as follows: @RunWith(Suite.class) @SuiteClasses({AccountEqualsTest.class, UserTest.class, CalcTest.class}) public class AllUnitTests { } Likewise, for component or system tests , you would create similar classes using the @Suit... More About: Cat , Cate , Out of the box , Tego
Boiling frogs and code metrics
2007-01-25 18:04:01 Over on Code Better.com, Jeremy Miller has an interesting post entitled “Are Code Statistics Useful?” in which he likens monitoring code metrics to boiling frogs: “If you drop a frog into boiling water he jumps right out. If you put a frog in cool water, then gradually heat the water to boiling, he won’t jump out.” The whole point being that if you don’t monitor metrics like Cyclomatic complexity, all of a sudden you could have a problem on your hands, especially when dealing with legacy code. What a great analogy! Jeremy’s posting is an excellent read; however, it’s unclear towards the conclusion if the measured Cyclomatic complexity values are for single methods or classes in the aggregate. Don’t forget to check out Raymond Lewallen’s posting entitled “Coupling, Abstractness, Stability - Measuring and Applying Code Metric s ” also on CodeBetter.com, in which he muses about coupling metrics. More About: Frog , Frogs
What?s worse than finding a worm in your apple?
2007-01-25 18:04:01 How about 31 bugs? 2007 was kicked off with two independent security researchers, Kevin Finisterre and his accomplice who goes by the pseudonym LMH, publishing details of a flood of security vulnerabilities in Apple ’s products. Known as the “Month of Apple Bugs” and modeled after July?s “Month of the Browser Bugs” and November?s “Month of Kernel Bugs”, the project discloses a new security hole each day in January in Apple’s OS X operating system and the applications that run on top of it. Some experts and users have questioned the purpose of these projects, debating whether these Month of ‘X’ Bugs are helping security or hurting it. Finisterre and LMH argue that: Flaws that are publicly disclosed will get fixed quickly. InformationWeek editor, Larry Greenemeier, explored security researchers’ practices at length, exposing the risks they create but ultimately concluding it’s a necessary price to pay for g... More About: Worm , What , Hat , Your
It?s the FUNDAMENTALS, stupid!
More articles from this author:2007-01-25 18:04:01 I avoid spending too much time in the philosophy of effective software development, but I felt inspired after reading some interesting threads recently on whether it’s tools, process or something magical that is the difference between a successful and a failed software development project. I find it somewhat amusing when some developers think that the latest programming language or methodology will not only enable us to write flawless code, but let us live in peace and harmony as well. Let me give you a hint: It will NOT! I am reminded of Coach John Wooden who led the UCLA Bruins to 10 NCAA championships. Coach Wooden focused on fundamentals. Some players want to focus on making a slam dunk or draining a three from 25 feet. However, Wooden’s philosophy was that fundamentals such as free throws, layups, and jump shots were most important. His players would consistently practice layups and free throws until it became second nature (a “non-event”). This is becau... More About: Fun , Mental , Men , Stupid , Fund 1, 2, 3, 4, 5 |
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