Test & Code

Latest Episodes:

140: Testing in Scientific Research and Academia - Martin Héroux Dec 18, 2020

Show notes

Scientists learn programming as they need it.
Some of them learn it in college, but even if they do, that's not their focus.
It's not surprising that sharing the software used for scientific research and papers is spotty, at best.
And what about testing?
We'd hope that the software behind scientific research is tested.
But why would we expect that?
We're lucky if CS students get a class or two that even mentions automated tests.
Why would we expect other scientists to just know how to test their code?

Martin works in research and this discussion is about software and testing in scientific research and academia.

Special Guest: Martin Héroux.

Links:

139: Test Automation: Shifting Testing Throughout the Software Lifecycle - Nalin Parbhu Dec 04, 2020

Show notes

Talking with Nalin Parbhu about the software evolution towards more test automation and the creation of Infuse and useMango.

We talk a software development and "shift left" where automated tests and quality checks have moved earlier into the software lifecycle.

Software approaches and where quality fits in
Shift left
Test automation
Roles of software developers, SDETs (software development engineer in test), testers, QA, etc.
Developers doing testing and devops
Automated testing vs manual testing
Regression testing, UI testing, black bock testing
Unit testing, white box, API, end to end testing
User acceptance testing (UAT)
Mullet Methodology (Agile at the front, Waterfall at the back)
Waterwheel Methodology (Requirements -> iterative development -> QA)
What's an agile team?
Developer resistance to testing
Manifesto for agile software development
Iterative development
Adapting to change
Agility: being able to change course quickly

Special Guests: Nalin Parbhu and Ola Omiyale.

138: Mutation Testing in Python with mutmut - Anders Hovmöller Nov 19, 2020

Show notes

Your test suite tells you about the quality of your code under test.

Mutation testing is a way to tell you about the quality of your test suite.

Anders Hovmöller wrote mutmut for mutation testing in Python, and can be used with pytest, unittest, and others.

In this episode, Anders explains mutation testing, how mutation testing with mutmut works, and good workflows.

Special Guest: Anders Hovmöller.

Links:

137: Become an Author - Matt Harrison interviews Brian Okken Nov 05, 2020

Show notes

Matt Harrison, author of many Python books, is putting together a course, Effective Book Authoring, to help other people write and publish books.
As part of this course, he's including interviews with people who have already written books, including me. This is that interview.

We discuss:

Why I wrote "Python Testing with pytest"
Self publishing vs working with a publisher
The writing, editing, and publishing process
Writing format
Book promotion
Advice to other writers

Special Guest: Matt Harrison.

Links:

Effective Book Authoring — Matt's course
Python Testing with pytest - Simple, Rapid, Effective, and Scalable

136: Wearable Technology - Sophy Wong Oct 26, 2020

Show notes

Wearable technology is not just smart consumer devices like watches and activity trackers.

Wearable tech also includes one off projects by designers, makers, and hackers and there are more and more people producing tutorials on how to get started. Wearable tech is also a great way to get both kids and adults excited about coding, electronics, and in general, engineering skills.

Sophy Wong is a designer who makes really cool stuff using code, technology, costuming, soldering, and even jewelry techniques to get tech onto the human body.

Sophy joins the show to answer my many questions about getting started safely with wearable tech.

Some of the questions and topics:

Can I wash my clothing if I've added tech to it?
Is there any danger in wearing technology or building wearable tech?
Are there actual wires and cables conductive thread in the fabric and textiles of some wearable tech projects?
What's a good starter project? Especially if I want to do a wearable tech project with my kids?
Dealing with stretch with clothing and non-bendy electronics.
Some questions around the Sophy Wong and HackSpace "Wearable Tech Projects" book.
How did you get into wearable tech?
Do you have a favorite project?
Can I get into wearable tech if I don't know how to code or solder?
Are these projects accessible to people with limited budgets?
Making projects so you can reuse the expensive bits on multiple projects.

Special Guest: Sophy Wong.

Links:

sophywong.com
Wearable Tech Projects book — The wearable technology book
costumes — The dress is on this page, as well as the Ghostbuster pack and costume.
spacesuit
Music video with Sophy's space suit
Kobakant tutorials

135: Speeding up Django Test Suites - Adam Johnson Oct 20, 2020

Show notes

All test suites start fast. But as you grow your set of tests, each test adds a little bit of time to the suite.
What can you do about it to keep test suites fast?
Some things, like parallelization, are applicable to many domains.
What about, for instance, Django applications?
Well, Adam Johnson has thought about it a lot, and is here to tell us how we can speed up our Django test suites.

Topics include:

parallelizing tests
moving from disk to memory
using fake data and factory functions
targeted mocking

Special Guest: Adam Johnson.

Links:

Speed Up Your Django Tests — the book by Adam Johnson
Kukicha — "or twig tea, ..., is a Japanese blend made of stems, stalks, and twigs."

134: Business Outcomes and Software Development - Benjamin Harding Oct 12, 2020

Show notes

Within software projects, there are lots of metrics we could measure. But which ones really matter. Instead of a list, Benjamin Harding shares with us a way of thinking about business outcomes that can help us with every day decision making.

We talk about:

Business outcomes vs vanity metrics
As a developer, how do you keep business outcomes in mind
Thinking about customer value all the time
Communicating decisions and options in terms of costs and impact on business outcomes
Company culture and it's role in reinforcing a business outcome mindset
And even the role of team lead as impact multiplier

I really enjoyed this conversation. But I admit that at first, I didn't realize how important this is on all software development. Metrics are front and center in a web app. But what about a service, or an embedded system with no telemetry. It still matters, maybe even more so. Little and big decisions developers face every day that have impact on costs and benefits with respect to customer value and business outcome, even if it's difficult to measure.

Special Guest: Benjamin Harding.

133: Major League Hacking - Jon Gottfried Oct 05, 2020

Show notes

Hackathons have been spreading around the world; many at university campuses. Major League Hacking, MLH, has been encouraging and helping hackathons.

Hacking can be thought of as tinkering. Taking things apart and putting them back together as an interesting experience. There's always been some of this as part of software culture.

The people at Major League Hacking have taken this to a whole new level, bringing together Tech creators who enjoy playing around with and crating new technology, on campuses, and now in virtual spaces, all over the world.

Jonathon Gottfried, one of the cofounders of Major League Hacking, joins the show to talk about:

hacker meetups and events
hackathons
what it's like to go to a hackathon
how to help out with hackathons as an experienced engineer, even virtually as a mentor
hackathons continuing virtually during the pandemic
internships and fellowships on open source projects to help students gain experience, even during the pandemic
MLH approach to internships, giving interns a support group, including peers, mentors, and project maintainers
and MLH itself

Special Guest: Jon Gottfried.

Links:

Major League Hacking

132: mocking in Python - Anna-Lena Popkes Sep 28, 2020

Show notes

Using mock objects during testing in Python.

Anna-Lena joins the podcast to teach us about mocks and using unittest.mock objects during testing.

We discuss:

the different styles of using mocks
pros and cons of mocks
dependency injection
adapter pattern
mock hell
magical universe
and much more

Special Guest: Anna-Lena Popkes.

Links:

Personal webpage of Anna-Lena Popkes
Magical Universe — Awesome Python features explained using the world of magic
Test & Code 102: Cosmic Python, TDD, testing and external dependencies — The episode where Harry Percival discusses mocking.
Talk: Harry Percival - Stop Using Mocks (for a while) - YouTube — Talk: Harry Percival - Stop Using Mocks (for a while)
unittest.mock
Autospeccing
Mock Hell Talk (45 min version) Edwin Jung - PyCon 2019
Mock Hell Talk (30 min version) - Edwin Jung - PyConDE
PyCon Estonia
KI macht Schule!
Talk Python #186 : 100 Days of Python in a Magical Universe

131: Test Smarter, Not Harder Sep 21, 2020

Show notes

Some people avoid writing tests. Some drudge through it painfully.
There is a better way.
In this episode, I'm going to share some advice from Luke Plant on how to "Test Smarter, Not Harder".

Links:

Test smarter, not harder - lukeplant.me.uk — The original article by Luke

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