Teaching Programmers to Write Better Tests - Geoffrey Dunn
13th January 2023
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Locked
Geoffrey
Talk Description
In an ideal world your newly hired programmers are being mentored into a good testing and TDD approach. The teams are regularly collaborating as Pairs or Mobs. And test quality is considered of more importance that code quality because if we keep the tests we could quickly rewrite the code from scratch.
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I don’t get to live in that world. Even experienced programmers I meet haven’t had the mentoring and experience to write good tests. Often their peers are giving detailed critic of the implementation code while ignoring test code. Seb Rose says testers should take part in code reviews. I say testers should teach programmers to write better test.
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In this talk I will cover why testers should teach programmers. How to practice and learn TDD together. The role tests serve as requirements and drive code creation. The knowledge testers bring to understand not all data in our tests are equal. Why we believe testing behaviours is more valuable that testing functions. As well as the role tests serve as documentation and regression. And I’ll explain how when we’ve helped programmers with all these testing centric concerns they get the added benefit of tests that aid - and not hinder - refactoring.
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I’ve been teaching programmers testing techniques across different companies over the last eight years. I see testing as a key skill Agile teams need to master to succeed. You don’t need to self-identify as a technical tester to help make that happen.
Takeaways
- How to approach aiding programmers to learn testing.
- A specific path to evolve their test thinking.
- And clear benefits the programmers can gain from this knowledge we can share.
What you’ll learn
By the end of this talk, you'll be able to:
- TBA
Geoffrey
Geoff has been working as a tester with embedded software teams at ResMed for over 6 years. In that role, he brought testing and software quality practices closer to the code being created. Prior to that Geoff worked as a software engineer for over 10 years before deciding testing was the biggest challenge for Agile teams to master. So he made a career change and worked as a Test Manager with the startup Building IQ for a year before moving on to ResMed where he is now a Lead Test Engineer.
Outside of work Geoff helps officiate Roller Derby games. At home he is supported by his Wife and two cats.
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