Internal server error: MoT Weekly – Issue 500

What if errors are opportunities to grow? Discover many ways to get involved with the testing, QA and quality engineering community. Read it all in this week's MoT Weekly.

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What's been happening in the testing, QA and quality engineering community? Let's go! ⛵️

— Simon Tomes, Community Lead at Ministry of Testing

 

Community

The community reflect on 2024.

"And that's me, holding the cable while Christine gives the talk😂😂"

Very first MoT indoor meetup in Vancouver! Where’s Wally?

A couple more meetups for your diary: MoT Bengaluru, 25th of January. Thanks to Animesh Pathak for organising. Plus, MoT Leeds, 30th January, Advancing your career with Gabbi Trotter, Sam Finnegan and Matthew Wood. Thanks to Ady Stokes, Scott Kenyon and Colin Wren for setting it up.

"I went into the new chapter of my life with no intention of falling back. I embraced the prospect of failure and committed to following a passion and desire." Great to see you thrive in your role and the community, Tom Game. We look forward to your 2025.

Coding Challenges Workshop - TestBash 2024.

Calm and steady as she goes.

Looking at a screen all day? Have you tried the 20-20-20 rule?

Callum Akehurst-Ryan predicts more of the same in 2025.

Fun fact! If you update your MoT Profile with your job title then we can create an analysis of industry job titles. Help us by updating your profile, thanks in advance! 🗺️

What are the QA trends that you are seeing right now? Add to the list for 2025.

More Ministry of Testing badges released! Gotta get them all 😊

"I was delighted to learn that I earned a couple more Ministry of Testing badges, I am getting quite a collection! Wheee!" – Lisa Crispin. Great to see those badges and all of Lisa's contributions. 🤩

 

Career Growth 

Job moves

Now hiring

Open to work


Looking for a mentor? Check out our growing list of people available to help. 🤝

 

Essentials

What’s your current definition of software testing? Seek inspiration and then add your definition to the glossary – available to professional members.

What are the many ways you categorise bugs?

Why Good Testers Ship Bad Software by Alessandra Moreira.

 

Continuous Quality

Do you understand what is meant by Continuous Quality? The quality engineering and testing space continues to shift everywhere.

Continuous Quality, a definition that you can add to.

 

Quality Engineering

Once a Quality Engineer, do we end up always building quality in? Meg shares thoughts on building quality in as a software engineer.

Quality Engineering, a definition that you can also add to.

Do you describe yourself as a Quality Engineer?

 

Systems Thinking

What does complex systems are bound to fail, differentiae – where is the difference, nobody likes a foundation have in common? Systems thinking and the very awesome Patrick Prill!

There's lots of things you don't know. Even the things you think you know might just be your intuition, cherry-picked anecdote, or lack of any thinking whatsoever.

Making connections – the rain drop model. 💧

 

 

Explore MoT Software Testing Essentials Certificate (STEC)

🤝 It’s time to approach learning about testing differently. STEC is the certification that gives junior testers confidence, community and connections.

 

 

Tooling

🛠️ Tool of the Week: Parasoft Selenic.

James Lyndsay launches new exercises for diff tools. Do check out his back catalogue of exercises. A great way to learn!

Shortest: QA via natural language AI tests.

Not very impressive video generation with Sora, the new video generator from OpenAI.

What are you using since Tricentis gave SpecFlow EOL end of 2024? asks Brandy B.

New talk by Swathika Visagn: How do you open the doors of a tester’s Postman workspace! 🚪

 

Strategy

The problem with software is that there are rather too many things to think about. You want to be thinking about the important parts of the problem and do the rest on auto-pilot. And if we’re going to rely on our defaults, we better make sure that they are safe ones.

New test team: 70% put test strategy as the most critical.

Do you proactively read pull requests? Change watching as part of the team’s test strategy.

Practical steps to reframe uncertainty, reduce imposter syndrome, and build lasting confidence. Uncertainty: The Hidden Trigger Behind Imposter Syndrome by Jit Gosai.

Using recognised techniques to create tests gives teams advantages argues Mike Harris.

The Best Product Engineering Org in the World by James Shore.

 

Testing Debt

Testing Debt: It Exists and hits every day in all environments by Ravisuriya Eswara.

 

Coding

The power of diff in testing - Part 1: SQL queries and mocks, Oliver Nguyen explores.

 

AI

Episode 46: Software Testing in the Age of Generative AI with Artem Grygorenko, Oleksandr Romanov and Mark Winteringham.

Mel Eaden shares a fable about GenAI.

Caution! Know This Before You Prompt For Your Testing.

 

Automation

Visual Regression Testing with VRT with Andy Sockett.

 

Bugs in the wild

Hacker stole unreleased Coldplay and Rexha tracks: Skylar Dalziel made about £42,000 by selling the tracks online, according to City of London Police.

"No matter what and how many mechanisms you put in place to prevent pranks, there is always the odd case that slips through the nets" — Peet Michielsen on the Fake Aldi on Google Maps wreaks 'havoc' on village.

Apple urged to withdraw 'out of control' AI news alerts.

 

Nine people on a bridge over a river. Six are standing and three are kneeling. Boats, trees and tall buildings are in the background. The sky is a cloudy grey. A duck character and a bug character are attempting to hide in the photo

Vancouver QA TrailTalks meetup - November 24, 2024

 

🗓️ Events

New events are always added, so keep checking the events page for up-to-date info.

 

💡 Continuous Call for Contributions

Contributing to the testing community is a great way to support your career. There are many ways for you to contribute and be rewarded. Sharing your knowledge supports everyone's career growth!

Look out for specific requests in the "Help MoT" channel on the MoT Slack. For example, you could share your knowledge by recording an audio message for STEC! ✨

 

Poll of the Week

A poll with the question "Do you describe yourself as a Quality Engineer?" and three possible answers: Yes: 80% No: 17% Something else, please comment: 3% The poll has received 434 votes in total.
Simon Tomes
Simon Tomes
he/him
Community Lead at Ministry of Testing
Hello, I'm Simon. I've had various roles in testing, tech leadership and coaching since 2003. I believe in the power of collaboration, creativity and community.
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