Automated Checking Beyond WebDriver

I'm a big fan of Selenium WebDriver, been using it for a very long time. Been teaching it for the last few years. Written several blog posts on it, which are hit hundreds of times a day. It's a fantastic project. I will continue to use it, support it, teach it and write about it. It's so good and easy to use, that in some companies it's the de facto tool for automated checking, beyond unit tests (web context of course). In some context there is no problem here, however in many others, there're several other suitable tools that are just as easy to use that enter the application/stack at a lower seam. I feel we need more people exploring and writing about these tools. I feel a lot of people are testing through the UI, instead of automating at the appropriate layer. Something Mark Winteringham recently wrote about.

With this scene in mind, my self and Mark designed a new automation class. The class is centred around a suite of existing automated checks that use WebDriver all through the UI. Then throughout the class, we understand their intent, what they are actually checking, and see if we can move the check to another seam. This seam could be up or down the imaginary stack. 

We explore automated testing / checking at the API layer. We explore patterns that can be applied here, and create some examples using Java. Discuss the advantages and disadvantages of automating at this level. 

We explore automated testing / checking at the JavaScript layer. Again looking at common patterns. We also explore how we can take advantage of browser developer tools to make this really easy. We then create some checks using Mocha and Chai.

We also then explore automated visual checking. These tools have come a long way in recent years, with some fantastic options available now. A lot of people believe they are actually checking the visual, what the user sees, with WebDriver, but it's not. However these new visual checking tools, advanced images comparers if you like, really do check the visuals. So we again, we will use Applitools to create some visual checks, and discuss the pros and cons of visual checking. 

The aim here, is to give people the patterns and exposure to tools and ideas beyond WebDriver. The more tools you have in your toolbox the less WebDriver nails you see, allowing you to create some truly targeted automated checks, which in my experience prove to be faster to execute, but more important faster to debug.

So, there we have it, if this is something you are interested in, below is where the course is being ran during the remainder of 2016.

New York - Monday 26th September - Test Masters Academy
https://www.testmastersacademy.org/index.html

Manchester, UK - Wednesday 30th November - Masters of the Ministry (Ministry of Testing)
https://www.ministryoftesting.com/masters-of-the-ministry/manchester-training-week-richard-bradshaw/

Potsdam, Germany - Friday 9th December - Agile Testing Days
https://www.agiletestingdays.com/

If you think that this sounds like a cool class, but you cannot attend yourself, even though you would love too, I would appreciate all shares to help me spread the word.

Thanks in advance for those.