Semaphore Uncut

Mob and pair programming are meant to ease collaboration and improve communication between team members. Still, other aspects of software development can also gain something from it.
 
This is the case for testing optimization, as well as for preserving an organization’s culture and growing teams. To shed light on these topics, we interviewed Llewellyn Falco, agile coach and the creator of ApprovalTests.

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In software development, testing is a vital part of ensuring quality products. However, how to test and why isn’t always clear or in the mind of developers, who may see it as beyond the scope of their job.

To Gaspar Nagy, the person behind SpecFlow, testing is a matter of collaboration, constant feedback, and handling overconfidence. To discuss the subject, we asked him to answer our question on the importance of testing, his journey as a software developer, and the tools he designed for implementing BDD testing.

You can also get Semaphore Uncut on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Google Podcasts, Stitcher, and more.

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Imagine those old days of building for the web, when everything was simple. Now imagine that you could have the user experience we have today mixed with the developer experience of yesteryear, of what felt like years ago.

That’s what Remix is, a web framework with laser focus on user experience. In this episode, Darko welcomes Kent C. Dodds, Director of Developer Experience at Remix. Kent explains what Remix is and why it’s so cool.

Listen to the full episode or read the edited transcript.  

If you need to cover a distance of 30 kilometers, you can walk for 6 hours. Or you can learn how to drive a car and get there in 30.

That’s what Shai Reznik, Test Effective Coach, learned the hard way. He worked so hard trying to juggle a 9-to-5 job with growing a startup that he got a panic attack. In the end, he decided automated what could be automated, including testing, is the only way to stay sane.

In this podcast episode, Darko and Shai talk about Shai’s career path from being a full-time developer to growing his startup to consultancy, why writing tests can save developers’ time, and how to write tests the test effective way.

Table of contents:

• How Shai started with business consulting
• How Shai started writing tests
• The most common mistake when writing code
• Shai's transition into consultancy
• Standup and improvisation in lectures
• How to find the balance between confidence and efficiency

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How do people end up in test automation? Is it a skill people can learn at universities or it’s more of a vocation, really?

There is no one path that leads to QA. What’s more important is that testing is just a subset of quality assurance. There're so many aspects to think about when people talk about signing anything off from a QA perspective.

In the most recent episode of Semaphore Uncut, we welcome Maryam Umar, Head of QA at Rezolve, international speaker. Maryam explains what the three Ps of testing are, how to advance your career as a testing engineer, and how to start a new position as a tester. Listen to the full episode or read the edited transcript.

What we talked about: 

• Starting with test automation
• How Maryam ended up in test management
• How to grow a team from 20 to 500 engineers and keep the quality of the processes
• Three pillars of quality assurance
• How to start a new position: checklist

You can also get Semaphore Uncut on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Google Podcasts, Stitcher, and more.

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There's so much more to testing than just writing automated tests that run in CI. Testers on high-performing teams don't just write tests. They work closely with site reliability engineers, ensuring that the infrastructure is tested as well. They get involved in production. 

But how does one introduce this holistic approach to testing to one's team? Even more so, how does one introduce continuous integration to an organization, if it hasn't been adopted yet?

In this podcast episode, we welcome Lisa Crispin, Author, Agile Testing Coach, "tester by trade",  in her own words. Among other things, we talk about a holistic approach to testing, how to shift from shipping many times a day to once a month, and how to help organizations adopt continuous integration. Listen to the full episode or read the edited transcript.

Table of contents:

• What’s more to testing than just writing tests?
• Exploratory testing
• Holistic approach to testing
• Modern trends in testing
• Implementing CI in organizations
• Testing as a practice: patterns and antipatterns

You can also get Semaphore Uncut on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Google Podcasts, Stitcher, and more.

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When your engineering team grows from 10 to 100 engineers in the course of a year, there are so many things that you need to focus on, from operations and developer tooling to testing. Maintaining the health of the application is perhaps the most difficult part of all. Where exactly do you start?

We sat down with Justin Searls, the co-founder and CTO of the Test Double agency. For many years, Justin has been consulting organizations on how to best tackle team's growth and ensure that good practices are in place when teams grow. 

We talked about how to grow engineering teams without losing sanity, how to divide work without stepping on one's toes, and keep your test suite maintainable.

You can also get Semaphore Uncut on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Google Podcasts, Stitcher, and more.

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In this podcast episode, we welcome Richard Kasperowski. Richard is an author, teacher, speaker, and coach focused on team building and high-performance teams.

Richard is the author of two books, High-Performance Teams: The Foundations and The Core Protocols: A Guide to Greatness, as well as the forthcoming book High-Performance Teams: Core Protocols for Psychological Safety and Emotional Intelligence. 

We talked to Richard about what core protocols are, how important it is to talk about one’s feelings, and how to help your team achieve new heights. Listen to the full episode or read the transcript.

Things we covered:

• How Richard started his career
• What are core protocols?
• Why psychological safety in teams is important
• Why it’s important to share how you feel, even as a developer
• How big should the team be?
• What is mob programming
• Things to do and not to do as a team leader

You can also get Semaphore Uncut on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Google Podcasts, Stitcher, and more.

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In this episode of Semaphore Uncut, we welcome Aslak Hellesøy, Cucumber Founder, Cucumber Open Source Lead at SmartBear. We walk about TDD and BDD, how to adopt automated testing, what different kinds of tests there are, and what the future holds for Cucumber. 

What we talked about, in more detail:

• Introduction
• The differences between TDD and BDD
• How developer communities evolve
• What is Cucumber?
• How companies started adopting Cucumber
• TDD: patterns and anti-patterns
• How to adopt test automation
• The hexagonal architecture of BDD
• Why do we need different kinds of tests?
• The future of Cucumber

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In this podcast episode, I welcome Emily Bache, technical agile coach, author of "Technical Agile Coaching with the Samman Method" and "The Coding Dojo Handbook". We talk about agile coaching, the Samman Method, peer reviews and various communication techniques and methods. Listen to our insightful conversation or read the edited transcript. 

What we talked about:

• The Coding Dojo Handbook
• Starting a career as an agile coach
• The Samman Method
• How long does it take a team to embrace something new?
• Communication techniques and methods
• How to begin with ensemble working
• How to improve soft skills and team work in an organization
• How to deal with flaky tests and large test suites

You can also get Semaphore Uncut on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Google Podcasts, Stitcher, and more.

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