Innovate QA Virtual - Testing the tests

Agenda:
12pm PST -1:00 pm PST Presentation by Bas Dijkstra
1:00pm - 1:15 pm PST - Virtual networking

Speakers Bas Dijkstra

Topic: Testing the tests - how I improved the tests for RestAssured .Net using mutation testing

Summary:
I have been working on and maintaining RestAssured .Net (a C# API testing library) for some 2.5 years now, and since November of 2022, the library has seen a few dozen releases. To verify that the library itself works as expected, I have tests in place that I run both on my own machine as well as in a CI build. These tests should give me the confidence that I don't break anything when I fix a bug, refactor existing code or add a new feature. But is that true? How good are these tests anyway? Do they deserve the trust I put in them?

Mutation testing is a technique that helps you get more information about the quality of your tests. This is important information, as tests can deceive you, and code coverage in itself is not enough to trust your tests.

In this talk and live demo, I will tell a story about why you should trust your tests, how these tests can deceive you, and how mutation testing can help find problems in your tests. In the live demo, I will show you actual results from mutation testing runs for RestAssured .Net. I will tell you what these results told me about the tests I thought I could rely on, and how I used that information to write better, more reliable tests and how this helped me improve my RestAssured .Net application code, too.

Bas's Bio:
Hey, my name is Bas Dijkstra, and I am an independent test automation consultant and trainer.

I have been active in the test automation field for some 18 years now, and have worked on software testing and automation solutions across a wide range of programming languages, frameworks and technology stacks.
I’ve delivered test automation training to dozens of companies and hundreds of conference attendees in the Netherlands as well as abroad, to excellent reviews.
You can find a complete overview of my professional life on my LinkedIn profile. If you want to get in touch, please use the contact form on this site, or send me an email at bas@ontestautomation.com.
I’m also the developer of RestAssured.Net, a library that is meant to to make writing tests for HTTP APIs in C# a breeze.
I live in Amersfoort, The Netherlands, together with my wife and two sons. When I am not at work, I like to go outside for a run or a long bike ride, or to sit down and read a good book.

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