Lessons learned

lessons-learned.md

Lessons Learned from Testing Firefly

• Use the fastest feedback cycle that gives you meaningful feedback!
• Test input lives with the test expression
• Make test input setup declarative and only need to specify what's germaine to the test
• Make test input as easy to setup as possible. Default values, etc. The ObjectConverter, interpret string as data structure is good
• Standardize your UI mechanics
• Use conventions driven off Strong typed names to tie the screen drivers to the UI!
• Separate expression of a test from the actual screen driving -- Use StoryTeller/Cucumber as a DSL layer over WatiR/WebDriver
• The pre-login type stuff. Don't make the tester specify every time
• Smaller, focused tests
• Provide contextual information about failures. Use the dropdown box "Hey, this option isn't available!" example
• Standardize screen manipulation -- our auto complete business, the ElementHandler stuff
• FubuMVC centric, but the EndpointDriver/NavigationDriver is killer. The way we can easily call backend Ajax services
• The standardized "wait for all Ajax requests to be done" is very, very nice
• WebSocket watcher
• Utilize White box testing for cheaper tests -- the way that we override the clock during tests, call alarms directly, wait for polling jobs, whatnot
• Awesome if you can collapse the app to a single AppDomain for purely functional testing
• The "I can drop and recreate the state of the system in a drop of a hat" thing

Wait.cs

public static class Wait
    {
        public static void Until(Func<bool> condition, int millisecondPolling = 500, int timeoutInMilliseconds = 5000)
        {
            if (condition()) return;




            var clock = new Stopwatch();
            clock.Start();

            var reset = new ManualResetEvent(false);

            ThreadPool.QueueUserWorkItem(o =>
            {
                while (true)
                {
                    try
                    {
                        if (condition()) break;
                    }
                    catch (Exception)
                    {
                        // Yeah, that's right.  I wanna swallow these exceptions
                    }
                
                    Thread.Sleep(100);
                }

                reset.Set();
            });



            reset.WaitOne(timeoutInMilliseconds);
            
        }
    }