Testing Katas: Try Before you Buy

Emma Armstrong @EmmaATester

Jonathan Watts@whatie

www.taooftesting.co.uk

Today’s Session• What’s this session all about?• What are katas and why use them for testing?• Some background on using oracles for testing• The kata• Introduce the objective• Testing the application• Debrief session

• Questions

What are katas?• Repeated practical exercises to ingrain behaviours until they become

instinctual• Allow you to cover various topics and situations in a safe learning

environment• Encourage knowledge sharing and collaboration

Why use katas for testing?• Deliberate practice• Learning and development – Tacit skills• Consistency• Knowledge sharing• Quality is everyone’s responsibility

Let’s try it then…• Introduce the topic• Get into groups• Test the application as a group• 15-20 minutes to test• Report back on your findings• Group discussion

Heuristics and Oracles• A heuristic is a mechanism to try and solve a problem or learn something

• What is an oracle?“An oracle is a heuristic principle or mechanism by which someone recognizes a problem.”

Michael Bolton, 2010

• However, they are fallible • How and when do you use this?

• Bug evaluation• Reporting• Test design

The kata - The consistency heuristic“We expect the system to be consistent with systems that are in some way comparable. This includes other products in the same product line; competitive products, services, or systems; or products that are not in the same category but which process the same data; or alternative processes or algorithms.”

Michael Bolton

Examine the calculator web application from a black box perspective using the consistency heuristic and document your findings.

For example, compare the behaviour our calculator to another equivalent application and see where the inconsistencies are.

http://bit.ly/1v4Nw6R (http://emmaarmstrong.github.io/CalculatorJavaScript/Calc.html)

Debrief• What did you find?

• How did you go about finding them?

What have we learnt?Resources

The calculator• https://github.com/EmmaArmstrong/CalculatorJavaScript

Code Katas• http://codekata.com/• http://codingkata.net/• http://dev.red-gate.com/category/blog/code-katas/

Test Katas• http://www.soapui.org/Testing-Katas/what-are-testing-katas.html• http://testing-challenges.org/tiki-index.php• http://weekendtesting.com/

Questions?

Thank you for your time

The calculatorhttps://github.com/EmmaArmstrong/CalculatorJavaScript

Code Katashttp://codekata.com/http://codingkata.net/http://dev.red-gate.com/category/blog/code-katas/

Test Katashttp://www.soapui.org/Testing-Katas/what-are-testing-katas.htmlhttp://testing-challenges.org/tiki-index.phphttp://weekendtesting.com/