Entries tagged with software testing - Channel 9

Lab Management coming to Visual Studio Team System 2010

Brian Keller — Mon, 10 Nov 2008 20:47:00 GMT

Today at TechEd Barcelona, Jason Zander announced that Visual Studio Team System 2010 will feature a brand new Lab Management capability to help organizations raise the bar on software quality. Lab Management will integrate with the rest of the Visual Studio to help testers more easily test a variety of configurations in a virtual lab environment, and help developers more easily repro bugs by delivering snapshots of those virtualized environments after bugs are discovered. I had a chance to sit down with Ram Cherala and Vinod Malhotra to get an in-depth look at how this will work.

This "Humanized Screencast" is best viewed at fullscreen using the high-quality WMV download.

Historical Debugger and Test Impact Analysis in Visual Studio Team System 2010

Brian Keller — Thu, 02 Oct 2008 18:26:00 GMT

Are you tired of constantly setting breakpoints to hone in on a pesky bug? How would you like to be able to step "back in time" through your debugger? The Historical Debugger in Visual Studio Team System 2010 promises to revolutionize your debugging experience. Habib Heydarian takes us through a demonstration of just a few of its capabilities.

But wait... there's more! Habib also shows us the new Test Impact Analysis feature his team is working on. With Test Impact Analysis it's possible to determine which of your tests will be... well... impacted by the code changes you're making! Not only does this mean that your unit test suite can run more quickly, but it can also lead to better testing and fewer bugs in software projects.

This "Humanized Screencast" is best viewed at fullscreen using the high-quality WMV download.

Manual Testing with Visual Studio Team System 2010

Brian Keller — Thu, 02 Oct 2008 18:16:00 GMT

Naysawn Naderi takes us through manual testing in Visual Studio Team System 2010. Naysawn shows off how the manual testing capabilities allow not only for better authoring and execution of manual tests, but can also be a tool to help automate portions of manual tests as well. Finally, Naysawn shows how to turn a manual test into a coded test which can then be fully automated.

This "Humanized Screencast" is best viewed at fullscreen using the high-quality WMV download.

Better Software Quality with Visual Studio Team System 2010

Brian Keller — Thu, 02 Oct 2008 18:16:00 GMT

I sat down with James Whittaker, software testing pundit and principal architect for Visual Studio Team System's testing capabilities, to learn more about the software quality tools coming in Visual Studio Team System 2010.

The last time we saw James he wasn't allowed to say anything about this particular release, but now that marketing has let the cat out of the bag James is excited to start talking about bridging the developer-tester divide.

Pex - Automated Exploratory Testing for .NET

Brian Keller — Thu, 03 Jul 2008 17:56:00 GMT

Pex is a tool being developed by Microsoft Research which has the potential to dramatically improve the quality of software testing while requiring minimal, if any, effort on the part of the developer. Pex can automatically generate a set of inputs for a paramaterized unit test which can effectively excercise most, if not all, possible code paths.

I visited Nikolai Tillmann and Peli de Halleux on the Pex team for a closer look at this cool technology.

This Week on Channel 9: PDC, Pex, Build Bunnies, UltraCam, Live Agents SDK

Brian Keller — Fri, 30 May 2008 18:53:00 GMT

This Week on Channel 9, Brian and Ed cover:

- PDC Registration (0:22)
- Improvements to MSDN and Technet [C9 Videos: Site Redesign] (1:30)
- Pex: Automated Exploratory Testing (6:00)
- .NET Framework 3.5 Client Profile: What's in, what's out? by Justin Van Patten (8:30)
- Mark Brown talking about the UltraCam used by Virtual Earth (10:13)
- Andrew Kirillov's article on Hand Gesture Recognition using AForge.NET (11:35)
- Release of the Windows Live Agents SDK (12:24)
- Ed's Pick of the Week: ASP.NET MVC Preview 3 Release and Scott Hanselman's ASP.NET MVC Beginner Videos (14:50)
- Brian's Pick of the Week: Brian the Build Bunny by Martin Woodward (17:23)
- Next Week's Show Coming from TechEd 2008! (20:45)

Special thanks to Rob Mackie, our awesome cameraman and all-knowing show technician, for playing the role of "Ed" during one of the segments. :-)

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geekSpeak recording: All About Team Build 2008 with Steven Borg

glengo — Tue, 13 May 2008 22:09:00 GMT

In this episode of geekSpeak, Steven Borg shares the merits of using Team Build 2008 to radically improve the quality of the code you write. Steven gives a great overview of how to set up automated builds and a build server, and the benefits of investing the time to do it right.

Steven also spends a bit of time talking about why he loves Test-Driven Development (TDD) - but pragmatically rather than zealously. Nonetheless, things like work items, build reports, logs and changesets available with Team Foundation Server can help developers zero in on bugs that "break the build". Breaking the build is bad, and we have a good chuckle about some of the stiff "penalties" that various development teams (even some within Microsoft) come up with for that infraction.

Also in this geekSpeak, get the scoop on what's on the horizon for setup and deployment projects, and hear about a great tool called WIX which makes building projects into MSI files super easy. Steven goes so far as to say that WIX actually changed the way he works, listen to him explain why.

Steven also gives tips on how many of you already have access to Team Foundation Server (and therefore, Team Build) and don't even know it. So it's easy to incorporate these tools into your software build process and, through the Continuous Integration they afford, drive up quality and enhance team involvement. As Steven says, it's like "a little bit of magic."

This geekSpeak was hosted by Lynn Langit and Mithun Dhar.

About our guest: Steven Borg

Steven Borg, a Northwest Cadence principal and the Microsoft Visual Studio Team System (VSTS) practice lead, works with corporations to improve their automated build process and overall software development process. In addition, Steven assists the Team System community as a Team System Most Valuable Professional (MVP), and was a founding member of the Seattle-based VSTS User Group. Northwest Cadence is a Microsoft Certified Partner and VSTS Inner Circle partner that focuses exclusively on helping companies improve their Application Lifecycle Management using Visual Studio Team System.

James Whittaker on Software Testing

Brian Keller — Mon, 05 May 2008 20:13:02 GMT

I recently sat down with James Whittaker who is a Principal Program Manager Architect on the Visual Studio Team System Test Edition team. James is tasked with helping to shape the next wave of testing tools coming out of the Visual Studio Team System family of products. And since software testing is one of the major "pillars" of for the "Rosario" release of Team System, James has been hard at work.

James isn't able to comment on specific features of Rosario just yet, but instead we got his insights about how he sees software testing evolving over the next few years to help testers become more effective at finding bugs... before the customer does.

For more information on software testing techniques featuring James and company be sure to check out the MSDN Tester Center.

geekSpeak recording: Tame Your Software Dependencies with James Kovacs

glengo — Tue, 15 Apr 2008 22:20:47 GMT

For your viewing enjoyment, here is a very thought provoking geekSpeak episode. James Kovacs is the guest, and he really shows us the the shortcomings of tightly coupled architectures from the perspective of testing and maintenance.

James gives lots of guidance on how to avoid introducing dependencies that result in too-tightly-coupled a design. The decoupled approach makes a lot of sense once you see it, and you've probably been doing it to a lesser degree without even being aware of it.

There's also a lot of good discussion in here about Test Driven Development, and how tight coupling impacts the ability to create effective tests that are poor at isolating the errors you need to fix. James shows how using unit testing frameworks can reveal this coupling nicely.

James also introduces the concept of mock objects, and compares them to fake objects. He also shows off a couple of interesting tools.

Watch this geekSpeak to learn more about how you can create more nimble code bases and avoid ripple effects when code is changed. Also, see if you can figure out where Glen's audio got disconnected! Be sure to read the article James wrote for MSDN magazine to extend your learning.

More resources related to this geekSpeak can be found on our geekSpeak blog.

About our guest: James Kovacs

James is an independent architect, developer, trainer, and jack-of-all-trades, specializing in agile development using the Microsoft .NET Framework. He is passionate about helping developers create flexible software using test-driven development (TDD), unit testing, object-relational mapping, dependency injection, refactoring, continuous integration, and related techniques. He is a founding member of the Plumbers @ Work podcast, which is syndicated by MSDN Canada Community Radio. James is a Microsoft Most Valuable Professional (MVP) - Solutions Architect and card-carrying member of ALT.NET, a group of software professionals continually looking for more effective ways to develop applications. He received his master's degree from Harvard University. James can be reached through his blog http://www.jameskovacs.com

Code to Live: Jeff Palermo and Nick Parker on ASP.NET MVP Framework

joshholmes — Tue, 22 Jan 2008 23:21:09 GMT

Chris Koenig interviews Jeff Palermo and Nick Parker about the ASP.NET MVC Framework.

geekSpeak recording - VSTS with Anton Delsink

glengo — Tue, 04 Sep 2007 21:06:34 GMT

This geekSpeak, recorded on Wednesday, August 8 (with host Lynn Langit and guest host Mithun Dhar), features Anton Delsink sharing a great overview of Visual Studio Team System. Anton, who is new to Microsoft, is based in Dubai. Prior to working for Microsoft he implemented VSTS solutions for customers.

Anton introduces us to VSTS and helps clear up any confusion over names and what tools are included in each edition. Anton enlightens us on the openness of VSTS for third party add-in tools.

Anton highlights how people in various roles in a project can use the system, from architects to devs, testers to project managers, and how they can work from their area of comfort, be it Visual Studio, Excel or even their browser. He also shows us how the reporting aspect is really SQL Server Reporting Services at heart, so you can report on quality indicators.

A lot of the conversation is centered around how using VSTS can help you support a software development process you've adopted, and how guidance for adopting an agile development approach with MSF is included. There's some good discussion here around how process is about behavior, and how VSTS helps you manage the behavior that you are trying to keep track of, and that things like work item tracking and reporting are very customizable.

We finish up the geekSpeak with some talk around offline usage of the source code management aspect of Team System, and Anton's top 5 tips for implementing VSTS in a production environment.

For the resources mentioned during the geekSpeak, visit the geekSpeak blog.

Ifeanyi Echeruo: Testing WPF - UI Fuzzing with InvokeStress

Charles — Thu, 31 Aug 2006 20:59:55 GMT

One of the best ways to guarantee a robust application is to create automated tests that can be run repeatedly on any build. But how do you test UI? Ifeanyi Echeruo is a tester on the WPF team who has written a cool tool using the UI Automation framework for exactly that purpose. Join Dr Sneath as he finds out more…

TechNet Radio - An interview with Mike Benkovich on the future of IT

mward — Thu, 06 Jul 2006 22:44:06 GMT

Bringing a wealth of experience from having worked in a variety of roles including architect, project manager, developer and technical writer, Mike Benkovich is a published author with WROX Press and APress Books, writing primarily about getting the most from your SQL Server database. Since appearing in Microsoft's DevCast in 1994, Mike has presented technical information at seminars, conferences and corporate boardrooms across America. In this episode, he talks with Michael Murphy about his experiences and the future of IT.

Sonal Pardeshi - Using VSTS's Source Code Management

scobleizer — Thu, 20 Oct 2005 06:56:56 GMT

Sonal takes us into meet John Lawrence, development manager on on the Visual Studio 2005 Team Foundation's Source Code Management team. You get to learn all about software project management and lifecycle. Why a daily build is important, how to track bugs, how to ensure that your development team follows policies, and much more!

If you want more information, check into the Visual Studio 2005 Team System Developer Center.

Looking at Code Coverage

trobbins — Sun, 09 Oct 2005 02:09:07 GMT

In this video, Thom Robbins takes a look at the new Code Coverage features. In case you don’t know code coverage is used to measure test effectiveness on a line by line basis within an application. Code Coverage information is gathered when application artifacts have been instrumented and during a test run are loaded into memory.

Tad Brockway - Terminal Services team tour

The Channel 9 Team — Wed, 21 Sep 2005 02:00:41 GMT

Ever use Terminal Services? You know, get into one Windows machine from another? Or use Fast User Switching? Or use Remote Assistance? Well, then you are using Terminal Services and in this video you'll meet some of the team that makes those technologies.

Kirk Glerum and Mike Hollinshead - Watson (what happens when your system crashes?)

The Channel 9 Team — Wed, 21 Sep 2005 01:56:44 GMT

What happens when an application crashes? Watson collects data and lets users send that in to Microsoft for analysis. Here you get to meet Kirk and Mike, two of the guys on that team and they talk about changes coming in Windows Vista.

Mike Burrows - PIX, graphics performance analysis

scobleizer — Mon, 05 Sep 2005 02:21:15 GMT

Are you a DirectX game developer? Well, you might check out PIX, which stands for Performance Investigator for DirectX. Mike Burrows demonstrates the tool and how you'd use it on Windows games to profile your game's performance.

Hunter Hudson/Jon Pincus - On Spot the Bug and Code Quality, Part III

The Channel 9 Team — Sat, 09 Apr 2005 07:42:52 GMT

Jon Pincus and Hunter Hudson talk about "Spot the Bug," which is a little game they play inside Microsoft on a mailing alias.

Hunter Hudson/Jon Pincus - On Spot the Bug and Code Quality, Part II

The Channel 9 Team — Sat, 09 Apr 2005 07:40:34 GMT

In this second part, Jon and Hudson talk about how programming teams can get their code quality up.

Hunter Hudson/Jon Pincus - On Spot the Bug and Code Quality

The Channel 9 Team — Sat, 09 Apr 2005 07:37:00 GMT

Hunter Hudson, development manager, programmer productivity Research center, and Jon Pincus, senior researcher on Microsoft Research, sit down with Charles Torre to talk about spotting bugs and code quality issues in this three-part interview.

Sara Ford - Finding and Logging a Bug (Maddog Part 4)

The Channel 9 Team — Mon, 07 Feb 2005 22:15:02 GMT

Logging bugs is easy. Logging “QA” quality bugs takes a little more time, energy, and focus. Logging a bug requires a well-written title and the fewest number of steps to reproduce the bug.

In this clip, SaraF “raids” a product bug found while investigating a test case failure, demo’ing how to minimize the number of repro steps and how to write an effective bug title.

For more information on writing a good bug report check out this post from the Product Feedback Center blog.

For more Devdiv updates check out our C9 site: http://channel9.msdn.com/devdiv
- josh

Sara Ford - Analyzing a Test Case Failure (Maddog Part 3)

The Channel 9 Team — Fri, 04 Feb 2005 21:18:08 GMT

Now that the test case owner knows why the test case has failed, the information, usually in the form of a bug id, is entered into Maddog. This tracking allows everyone, not just the test case owners, to know how many product bugs are affecting the current build.

In this clip, watch MHagman and SaraF analyze a test case failure in Maddog.

For more Devdiv updates check out our C9 site: http://channel9.msdn.com/devdiv
- josh

Sara Ford - Investigating a test case failure in the lab (Maddog Part 2)

The Channel 9 Team — Fri, 04 Feb 2005 00:51:20 GMT

Whenever a test case fails in a test case run, the owner of that test case needs to verify why the test case failed. It could have failed because of a product bug or a test case issue. The sooner a product bug is logged, the better the chances are of it getting fixed, and catching any regressions as soon as possible from the fix.

In this clip, watch MHagman and SaraF investigate a test case failure that results in 2 product bugs in VS Core’s lab.

See Sara's blog post "What is a nightly test case" for more information about what scenarios go into nightlies and how often they are run.

For more Devdiv updates check out our C9 site: http://channel9.msdn.com/devdiv

- josh

Sara Ford - Introduction to DevDiv's Test Case Management System (Part 1)

The Channel 9 Team — Wed, 02 Feb 2005 23:29:29 GMT

Maddog is the internal tool DevDiv uses for test case maintenance. Maddog provides version control for test cases and allow users to configure test case runs.

In this clip, MHagman, jledgard, and SaraF go over the basics of Maddog.

More detailed info can be found in Scottgu's post "Testing ASP.NET 2.0."

For more Devdiv updates check out our C9 site: http://channel9.msdn.com/devdiv

- josh