In the fourth installment of Coding QA Federico and Matthew discuss "The Good," "The Bad," and "The Ugly" of the history of the ASP.NET QA Team. Discussion ranges from the dark ages, to the renaissance, to the industrial revolution, to the "21st and half century".  Join them as they discuss the lessons learned and how the team has improved over time.

• The team released the April update to the Lightweight Test Automation Framework.
• "The Dark Ages" ASP.NET 1.0/2.0
  • During this time the team was very focused on automating everything.
  • (disadvantage) This approach is not good with a changing Spec.
  • (disadvantage) Bugs were being found to late in the process.
  • (advantage) Excellent automation coverage.
• "The Renaissance" Atlas/Microsoft Ajax
  • The division moved to a feature crew model for development and QA.
  • (advantage) The team adopted a heavy unit testing practice. Increase in code coverage.
  • (disadvantage) The QA team still worked has it had before. It would automate everything is less time.
• "The Industrial Revolution" ASP.NET 3.5
  • The QA team began to adopt the Feature crew model and started the process of agile testing with exploratory testing.
  • (advantage) Bugs were being found at the beginning of the process.
  • (disadvantage) The team still wrote a large amount of automation.
• "21st and half century" ASP.NET 3.5 SP1/ASP.NET 4.0/vNext
  • The team has really started moving away from automating everything and is spending more time investigating user scenarios.
  • The team has formed its own unique blend of agile, scrum, and any other buzz word project management theory.
  • (advantage) Creating and automating sample applications provides feedback for real world customer scenarios.
  • (disadvantage) The team is young and is still learning the best practices.
  • (Struggle) Costing has become less of a clear cut process.
  • (Struggle) The is still a barrier between the QA and Dev teams.
  • (Struggle) No one wants the blame when a bug is found.

Links from the show :

• Lightweight Test Automation Framework April Release
• Federico’s Email
• Matthew’ Email
• ASP.NET QA Team Blog

In the third installment of Coding QA Federico and Matthew interview Mark Berryman, a test lead on the ASP.NET QA Team.  Join them as they learn the ins and outs of test management through Mark’s eyes.

• Release of the Mobile Browser Database by Live Dublin.
• April refresh of the Lightweight Test Automation Framework.
• Interview with Mark Berryman.
  • What is the difference between Test Manager and Test Lead.
  • A little history of Mark and how he came to join the ASP.NET QA team.
  • Responsibilities of a Test Lead / What Mark is working on.
  • What Mark looks for in a tester on his team.
  • Challenges Mark faced when he was an IC (individual Contributor).
  • What Mark would change on items he has tested in the past.
  • How Mark Manages risk on his team.
  • Who is Marks favorite person in the whole world.

Links from the show :

• Mobile Browser Database
• Federico’s Email
• Matthew's Email
• ASP.NET QA Team Blog

In the second installment of Coding QA Federico and Matthew discuss MIX 09 announcements and the ins and outs of supporting various browser versions on the ASP.NET QA team.

• MIX 09 Conference announcements
  • MVC RTM 1.0
  • Silverlight 3.0
  • Web Application Installer
  • Web Application Gallery
• What browsers the team tests on and how they decided which browsers to test.
• What it means when the team says they support a browser.
• How the team manages the risk of not testing on every possible browser.
• The timeline for testing features on multiple browsers.
• The infrastructure the team has to test on multiple browsers.
• How the team keeps up with the fast growing browser market, such as the release of four major browsers in just a few months.

Links from the show :

• ASP.NET MVC RTM 1.0
• Silverlight 3.0
• Web application installer
• Web application gallery
• Federico’s Email
• Matthew’ Email
• ASP.NET QA Team Blog

In the first ever Coding QA Federico and Matthew discuss the motivation behind the community involvement from the QA team and the release of the QA team’s Lightweight Test Automation Framework for ASP.NET and what it is.

• Introductions to the podcasters, Federico and Matthew.
• What is it that the ASP.NET QA team does.
• The recent release of ASP.NET MVC RC2.
• The recent release of the source code to the Lightweight Test Automation Framework.
• The purpose of the release of the framework to codeplex.com and where it fits in the market.
• Why the QA team chose to write their own automation framework.

Links from the show :

• ASP.NET MVC RC2 Release
• Federico’s Email
• Matthew’s Email
• Lightweight Test Automation Framework forum
• Download The Lightweight Test Automation Framework

Disclaimer : This is our first try at creating, editing, and publishing a podcast.  Please bear with us as we iron out all the wrinkles in the process. Your feedback is greatly appreciated.