Where to learn automated software testing cost-effectively
As a tech-enthusiast and philomath, learning automated software testing should be the next big thing for you. Even if you don’t have previous programming experience.
You would be glad to hear that automated software testing doesn’t require a vast knowledge of computers or programming languages to get started with. Free resources and YouTube would suffice. So, let’s get started with a definition.
What Is Automation Testing
Automation testing is employing predefined algorithms that are used to test other software and tech to ensure compliance with quality standards. It is intended to replace manual testing for you and enhance the quality of it by negating human errors.
While automation testing works better mostly, you should leave some critical issues for human intervention. As it can be used any time of the day and doesn’t get tired of doing the most mundane of tasks, it has found its way to most offices where a lot of testing is required.
Most businesses employ a team of testers to supervise the testing process and to ensure continuous testing and development. With a faster development cycle, minimal human error, and automating boring tasks, you should try to extract the maximum return on investment.
It would not be fair if we don’t discuss the cost-effectiveness of automation testing. An automation testing model is typically costlier to develop. But in the long term, it is much cheaper than hundreds of employees.
Where to Learn Automation Testing
It’s unlikely that you’d be able to learn automation testing in a day. It’s a cumulative process and takes the understanding of how and why things work. Fumbling around Google and YouTube will only make you more confused about where to start.
To clear you out of the confusion, let’s discuss how you can methodically approach the resources to learn automation testing.
Online tutorials
The easiest way to learn automation testing is through automation learning tutorials and blogs. If you have basic object-oriented programming knowledge, you can get started with automation.
Blogs generally focus on a more theoretical approach on the technical parts but are great resources to learn if you like to follow written tutorials than audio or videos.
If you want to learn about a programming language extensively, your best bet is blogs that offer paid resources. But again, it’s not a necessity for automation testing. Just a brush up on the fundamentals of programming is enough to get started.
The most popular programs that automation testers use are JAVA and Python. But you can get started with c++ if that’s your zone.
Online Forums
Online forums like Reddit and Stackoverflow can be very handy if you have questions throughout your journey.
While you particularly can’t learn automation through these forums, they are a great way to solve issues that you may incur while learning or even working on a project.
Crash Courses
Following understanding the core concepts, you must go towards automation now. For this, your best bet is hands-on seminars and crash courses.
Udemy has a lot of practical approach-based automation tutorials that can help you get started with the first project.
Seminars are also effective for making contacts and learning from those who have already established themselves in the automation testing domain.
YouTube Videos
Servers are an integral part of websites and applications. Web services, data structure testing, API testing, and DB testing are all considered server-side testings.
Long-form YouTube videos are a great source of learning server-side automation testing cost-effectively if you aren’t inclined to spend thousands on paid courses.
Although YouTube videos can offer a great deal of knowledge, not having a practical view of things often makes the efforts futile. If you start with one channel and decide to move on to another, the content might get confusing for a beginner like yourself. So, you must plan your course of learning carefully.
Why Learn Automation Testing
Saving Time and Money
A piece of software is tested hundreds of times before deployment. Whenever your source code changes, so do the testing cycles. While it doesn’t take much in the beginning, as the code branches out, it gets tricky. Manually testing the source code every time would be time-consuming for you and costly for your company.
Increasing Test Coverage
Automated testing software can increase the coverage of testing by checking every corner of the code for bugs. While it’s all possible through manual testing, the time and resources it would take to execute such operations can be overwhelming.
Traffic Testing
Automation testings can emulate hundreds of thousands of users trying to access the same website at the same time. Which is virtually impossible for you to test with manual testing. Web Application Tests are only run by automated programs and can’t be executed by manual testing.
What Can Be Automated
Unit Testing
Consider a loop in your code. If it doesn’t rely on other inputs other than the user, it’s a unit. Unit testing is only considered at the start of the development process and relies upon your understanding of the code. Developers define a unit and let automation testing take over to screen it for them.
Regression Testing
Regression testing is employed when your software needs minor modifications. It’s operated to check if something is broken. For small projects, it’s possible for you to manually test for regressions. But large projects need automation programs to run it for you.
You should consider two things when testing for regressions:
- The previously patched bugs stay dead.
- Working functions aren’t damaged.
As small modifications keep happening all the time, automation testing is considered for the job.
Integration Testing
When you collaborate on a large project. It’s possible that some bugs might occur only when all the parts are joined together. Integration testing looks for the bugs that occurred during the coupling of two systems.
Load Testing
As discussed, load testing ensures that the website or software stays alive even after huge traffic is introduced. In most cases, expanding the server or hardware capacity mitigates the issue.
The Bottom Line
If you want to learn automation testing, free resources are what you want to start with. Don’t go for professional courses at the beginning and just get a hang of things. As learning a programming language is the stepping stone of any kind of automation testing, it’s recommended that you start with some credible online resources. All the best.
