Testing Your Code

[MUSIC] 0:00 Hi there, welcome to QA Engineering. 0:09 My name is Ryan Saul, and I'm a QA Engineer. 0:12 I'm sure your first question is going to be, what is QA Engineering? 0:16 And I wanna answer that in a minute, but 0:21 first I wanna talk about why you need to test your code. 0:23 So you have this great new application that you've created, that lets people 0:27 email their friends and family invitations through a little website. 0:31 It's a simple RSVP application. 0:35 You've been working on this application for weeks, and 0:38 you're finally ready to share it with the world. 0:42 After you've put it up on a live website, you share it on social media and 0:44 tell all of your family and friends about it. 0:49 But almost immediately after posting this, a friend writes a comment on your post and 0:52 says hey there, I was really excited to check out your new website, but 0:57 it doesn't seem like it works. 1:02 It's not doing anything when I click send. 1:03 And then another family member chimes in, hey this looks great, but 1:07 I can't enter in Lisa's full name when I try to send her an invitation. 1:11 She has four names you know? 1:15 So, worried that the application isn't working properly, you take down the site 1:17 immediately, and bring it back up the next day after you've fixed those issues. 1:22 Your cousin then comments hey, I tried your new site and 1:27 just sent you an invite to my barbecue next week, I hope you got it. 1:30 But you look at the website and there's just nothing. 1:35 So clearly our new application isn't doing what we want it to do. 1:38 We have all these problems we've never thought of, 1:44 plus the app isn't even working. 1:47 What we needed to do after creating the app, but 1:49 before releasing it out to the world, was to test it. 1:52 So testing and programming really go hand-in-hand. 1:57 We could probably all agree that all software should be tested to 2:01 at least do the things that we set out for it to do, right? 2:06 And we probably all assume that big software companies thoroughly test 2:10 all their software for major flaws all the time, right? 2:15 And we could even agree that it would be irresponsible, 2:20 short-sighted, and even reckless not to do those tests, right? 2:24 But clearly not all software gets thoroughly tested, or 2:30 else we wouldn't have some of these news worthy stories that involve huge problems. 2:33 So Y2K, problems with the Mars Pathfinder, even the release of Apple Maps. 2:39 All of these are some pretty big examples of why thorough testing 2:46 is needed in software development. 2:50 So testing is extremely important to the software development process, 2:53 which gets me back to the original question. 2:59 What is QA Engineering? 3:02 Okay, so there's two parts to this. 3:04 QA, or Quality Assurance, is the method of preventing mistakes and 3:08 defects from occurring in a product. 3:12 You might be thinking of people at the end of a factory line, picking up widgets and 3:15 looking for imperfections. 3:19 That's what we call Quality Control. 3:21 Quality Control is just one part of Quality Assurance. 3:24 Not only does Quality Assurance verify the end product, but 3:29 also manages the entire development process. 3:33 Now software quality assurance, or SQA, is what we're talking about in this course. 3:37 And we can't just sit at the end of a factory line and 3:44 watch as the product rolls by us. 3:46 We need to be involved in almost every step of the software development process. 3:49 Coming up with ways to make sure that software does what it's supposed to do. 3:54 And we need to test the end product thoroughly to find any mistakes. 3:59 Software is hard and complex, and it can be changed very quickly. 4:05 This is why we need more than just inspectors or testers. 4:10 We need to come up with many ways to assure quality 4:14 throughout the development process. 4:18 This is what we call QA Engineering. 4:20 Where we're not just testing the product we've been given, but 4:23 designing new ways to break the software. 4:26 Or discover problems early in the development process. 4:29 Okay, let's take one more famous example, the launch of healthcare.gov. 4:34 So back in 2013, the US Federal Government was preparing to roll out a website 4:40 that would make it easy for people to enroll in various healthcare plans. 4:46 They wanted a site that would streamline signing up for healthcare. 4:52 Even though the website appeared to be up and 4:57 running, the rollout was met with numerous technical problems. 4:59 The website would put users into extremely long wait times, 5:04 because the site could not handle the large load of visitors. 5:08 Even people who could make it through were met with a really confusing system, 5:13 that required a visitor to complete the registration process 5:18 before they could even compare healthcare plans. 5:22 In their first week of operation, healthcare.gov was only able to enroll 5:25 about 1% of those interested in getting healthcare through the site. 5:30 Even President Obama at the time commented on the technical problems of the website, 5:35 saying the website's been too slow. 5:40 People have been getting stuck in the application process, and 5:43 I think it's fair to say that nobody's more frustrated by that than I am. 5:46 We can point to come pretty key issues that made these problems happened. 5:51 There were poorly defined requirements. 5:56 There were major software design issues. 5:58 And there was not enough testing of the entire website from start to finish. 6:02 And that is where QA Engineering comes into play, and 6:06 can help prevent huge launch failures, like this one. 6:10 So the QA Engineer helps define clear needs that they can test for, 6:14 helps design the software so that it can be tested. 6:19 And runs all those tests to make sure that the software both does what it's 6:22 supposed to do and doesn't break along the way. 6:26 Over the course of this series we're gonna be talking a lot about testing, 6:29 it's about the most important aspect of software quality assurance. 6:34 We're gonna keep coming back to the RSVP app that we mentioned earlier, and 6:39 learn how to properly test various parts of it. 6:43 We're gonna learn how to write tests, how to execute them, and 6:47 how to write those tests even better. 6:51 As we're going through the course, 6:53 don't hesitate to use the video playback controls. 6:55 You can adjust the playback speed to be faster or slower as needed. 6:58 Be sure to check out the Teacher's Notes on each video's page too. 7:04 Throughout the course, we'll have Teacher's Notes that include 7:07 troubleshooting tips or links where you can learn more. 7:11 This course will also show you simple templates for test cases and 7:15 bug reports, that you can use in any simple word processor. 7:19 We will not be using any specific software to learn this course 7:23 outside of just a spreadsheet tool or a word processor. 7:27 Okay, at this point, I'm sure you've taken at least an introduction to programming 7:31 course and possibly even have written some code. 7:35 But if you haven't, see the Teacher's Notes on this video's page for 7:39 links to some courses that you should check out. 7:43 Programming is not required for this course, but you'll have 7:46 an easier time following along if you know how to create a simple application. 7:49 Ready? All right, let's get going. 7:54