Testing from the Ground Up by Aly Sivji

This session is geared towards developers who want to write tests but are not sure where to start. After this talk, test newbies will have all the skills and knowledge to write their first test. Attendees with testing experience will be exposed to tools and techniques that can make them more effective testers.

Tests ensure our program works as intended and that changes to the codebase do not break existing functionality. However, these benefits are not free; we need to have a plan to write our application and a plan to test it.

Seasoned developers can balance writing code to solve business problems with writing tests to ensure correctness and prevent regression. Finding this balance and knowing what to test can feel more like an art than a science, especially to those new to the industry. This talk will introduce concepts and techniques that can be used to write effective tests by exploring the following topics:
• Benefits of testing
• Blackbox vs whitebox testing
• Automated vs manual testing
• Types of tests
• Test metrics
• Tools that simplify the testing process

Aly will start his presentation at about 6:30. We'll have meet-n-greet both before and after. You do not need to show up exactly at 6 nor stay until 9. Thanks to Innovation DuPage and Benedictine University for the free pizza and pop and free meeting space. The exact location is room 312 (on the 3rd floor) of Goodwin Hall, the rectangular building right next to the multi-level parking garage.

About the Speaker: Aly Sivji is a Canadian expat living in Chicago. He is a co-organizer of the Chicago Python Users Group (ChiPy) in charge of Special Interest Groups. Aly is an active participant in ChiPy’s Mentorship Program and loves helping intermediate developers get over the hump to become experts. Outside of Python, Aly enjoys cycling, reading, and rewatching old TV shows.