Nishant Verma

Test Automation is a main stream activity and it's goal is to strengthen the rapid pace of development and augment the continuous release process. In order to keep up the with the pace of development, there has to be a sustained effort to maintain and update the test automation suite.  So test automation has to be a planned activity and included/incorporated in the project planning.  I think I have enough write ups on test automation where in ether I am detailing a new tool or some tool comparison or some tricks and tips or explaining how to set up stuff or best practices etc. This post is to highlight what test automation won't do for you. This is mostly out of my experience and conversation with different people from various roles. Definitely when you read you will have more to add or subtract (which is fine and individual's opinion). Test automation won't substitute for manual testing.  It's an on going activity. It's not a one time investmen...

I was trying to set up my personal mac for playing around with calabash . So I started following the instructions mentioned here . When I ran the command "gem install calabash-android" I got the below error. Then after googling on web I realised that this is happening because I upgraded my Xcode post the Mountain Lion update. So now I am running Xcode version 4.6. Once you install Xcode, you will have to install " Command Line Tools ". This will be available under XCode -> Preferences -> Downloads . Once the command line tool is installed try running the following command in terminal: which make and you will see the result as " /usr/bin/make ". Then I tried running the gem install calabash command again and it worked.

Production release ??? Every 2 weeks ??  I am sure the title of the post would have compelled you to think twice but thats what we have been doing here in Thoughtworks in one of the project. And I am happy to share that I am not the only one who is enjoying this 2 week release cycle, there are bunch of other projects which has the same delivery cycle. Since this is repeatable and has been achieved by other team as well, so we must be sharing some commonality in terms of process and techniques which helped us achieve this.  What are those processes ? How big is the QA team ? Do you have a separate release management team ? How much is the automation coverage ? Do you automate all the regression tests ? I am sure you would be having these questions in mind as you are going through the post. Let me explain what empowers us to make a production release every 2 weeks. We here in ThoughtWorks follow agile methodology. I am sure if you are reading this post you ...