Coding to Test Tables<\/h2>\n
For this blog, I got inspired by two things:<\/p>\n
- \n
- Chapter 2 of Raja Rao\u2019s course on Modern Functional Testing Through Visual AI<\/a><\/li>\n
- My summary of Angie Jones\u2019s webinar on Test Engineers Who Know The Answers<\/a><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n
Raja\u2019s chapter 2 focuses on testing tables. And, I was talking with Angie about the webinar she did to help you ace your next job interview. In that webinar, Angie focuses on one of those thought questions you get asked whenever you interview for a job – just to see how you think. And the question she came up with was:<\/p>\n
\u201cHow do you test a chair?\u201d<\/p>\n
![\"Screen](\"https:\/\/app14743.cloudwayssites.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/10\/Screen-Shot-2019-10-30-at-11.59.25-AM.png\")
<\/p>\nPhoto by Inside Weather<\/a>\u00a0on Unsplash<\/a><\/p>\n
So, test a table, test a chair. We laughed at the irony.<\/p>\n
But, testing software tables can be incredibly challenging.<\/p>\n
Think about a simplistic table that has an ordinal value, a name, a category name. Something like this, which uses the built-in table capability in WordPress:<\/p>\n\n
\n\n
\n\t \nNumber<\/th> Name<\/th> Artist<\/th> Category<\/th>\n<\/tr>\n<\/thead>\n \n\t 1<\/td> Led Zeppelin IV<\/td> Led Zeppelin<\/td> Rock<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n \n\t 2<\/td> Kind of Blue<\/td> Miles Davis<\/td> Jazz<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n \n\t 3<\/td> Sweet Baby James<\/td> James Taylor<\/td> Folk Rock<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n \n\t 4<\/td> Take Five<\/td> Dave Brubeck<\/td> Jazz<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n \n\t 5<\/td> Tapestry<\/td> Carole King<\/td> Soft Rock<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n \n\t 6<\/td> Songs in the Key of Life<\/td> Stevie Wonder<\/td> Soul<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n \n\t 7<\/td> There Goes Rhymin' Simon<\/td> Paul Simon<\/td> Pop Rock<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n \n\t 8<\/td> The Yes Album<\/td> Yes<\/td> Progressive Rock<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n \n\t 9<\/td> Best of Blue Note<\/td> Various Artists<\/td> Jazz<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n \n\t 10<\/td> Teaser and the Firecat<\/td> Cat Stevens<\/td> Folk Rock<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n\n If this list looks specific, it lists my response to a friend’s desire to know what albums formed my musical tastes. I don’t know what this list says about me, but the table helps illustrate the use of tables in web applications.<\/p>\n
This table gets built by a simple WordPress add-on. It has sort capability on all columns, but no filtering capability.<\/p>\n
Now imagine being able to filter by \u201cCategory\u201d or by \u201cArtist\u201d.<\/p>\n
Now imagine the code needed to test the sort and filter behaviors.<\/p>\n
Complexity vs. Simplicity – Visual AI<\/h2>\n
Let’s dive into testing tables with software. Chapter 2 of Raja\u2019s course dives into testing tables. He shows you his own table example and then lets you see the sample test code he would write to test the table. And it\u2019s all perfectly legitimate Java, and it works fine.<\/p>\n
- My summary of Angie Jones\u2019s webinar on Test Engineers Who Know The Answers<\/a><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n