Name | Martin Nathaniel |
Position at COPS | Software Tester |
At the company since | 2019 |
Age | As old as the answer for the universe and all the rest |
Hobbys | Mathematics, AI, sports, and music |
What connects me to corima is … | … among other things, an oath I took before the international tester board: |
| In 10 years… | … corima 20.0 =) |
corimamagazin: Hello Martin. Today we want to take you on a further excursion into the world of software development. As with many other products, software is tested before it is delivered to customers. Pretty much everyone can imagine how a car is tested. But cars are extensively tested once and then produced. When they roll off the production line, there is a functional test and during use there is regular maintenance. But how does that work with software?
At our UserTreff 2022, you already gave a very exciting lecture on how to develop a test automation framework. What about this and how do you imagine the „moose test“ (editor’s note: legendary car driving dynamics test that caused the first Mercedes Benz A-Class to overturn while driving in 1997: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moose_test) for software?
M.Nathaniel: You chose the comparison with the automotive industry well. In this sector, there are some good examples of how the introduction of agile development methods and the establishment of a test infrastructure have led to a strong competitive advantage in the market. In recent years, all manufacturers have been confronted with events on a global scale that have made it necessary to change the entire manufacturing process, including the supply chain, within a very short period and during ongoing production. Fast response times are only possible if you have a sensorium directly embedded in the manufacturing processes that validates changes for production within a few hours. Such a sensorium is nothing more than a test suite as known from software development, and the techniques for setting up the test infrastructure are quite comparable. Interestingly, this very fact is a golden opportunity for start-ups and newcomers, as the implementation of this test suite can take place simultaneously with the setup of the individual production steps, and the test infrastructure therefore grows naturally along with the production capacity. For established manufacturers, who already have a huge machinery with thousands of production steps running, maintaining such an infrastructure is a challenge then. It is particularly evident how essential the switch to agile methods is for the success of a company in the automotive industry, because due to the high capital commitment in this sector, a delayed reaction to market conditions is immediately reflected in the balance sheet.
„This means that we are on the verge of a real quantum leap in the development department and that we are now very well positioned for the coming years.“
Let’s get back to COPS: We recognized the need to switch to agile methods years ago and reorganized our entire processes within the development department accordingly. Automated testing is just one piece of the puzzle, but a very important one. Until recently, we were in a similar situation to the long-established car manufacturers mentioned at the beginning. We were sitting on a veritable treasure trove of applications that had already been implemented, but which were difficult to modify because an automated test framework had to be maintained first. We have just finished building the test infrastructure around web applications. This means that we are on the verge of a real quantum leap in the development department and that we are now very well positioned for the coming years.
corimamagazin: How can one imagine this quantum leap in more detail?
M. Nathaniel: Modern development relies primarily on speed. Nowadays, it is very easy to quickly build a prototype or even have it built by artificial intelligence. The challenge is to reliably integrate a new functionality into an existing system, expanding its capabilities as the complexity of the requirements increases. The quantum leap we are facing is, that we can match the speed at which integration happens into one of our systems, to the speed at which prototyping can occur. This not only increases our own efficiency, but also puts us in a position to benefit from general technological leaps in the software sector in the future, as we can also integrate external tools much faster than was previously the case.
„What is automated, is the execution of the tests, not the creation of the tests themselves.“
corimamagazin: As a non-professional, you now think to yourself: If software tests software, who tests and controls the test software
M. Nathaniel: That’s a good point. When the buzzword „automated“ comes up, many people get the image in their heads that everything happens magically on its own, without any flesh-and-blood human being behind it. However, exactly the opposite is the case. What is automated, is the execution of the tests, not the creation of the tests themselves. Writing the test scripts and test design very much still needs to be done by humans. Figuring out how to make sure that software does exactly what it is being expected of and that it interacts correctly with other programs is a great science and art at the same time and cannot yet be done by an artificial intelligence.
„Modern software development is a team sport and good communication between the teams is the key to success.“
corimamagazin: What does this mean for the knowledge and skills of testers? Does a tester today also have to be able to do some programming? What other skills, hard or soft, do you think are needed
M. Nathaniel: Test teams are generally very broadly based nowadays, and the modern tester must be both technically adept and familiar with the respective domain. Within the team, there are certain roles that the individual tester can specialize in. At COPS we have a good mix — one half builds the test framework, the other helps create design specifications for new applications, and we also have a tester who specializes mainly in UI/UX design. Most importantly, however, is the social component. Modern software development is a team sport and good communication between the teams is the key to success.
„Being agile is simply being able to respond quickly to change…“
corimamagazin: We keep coming back to the topic of „moving to agile methods“. What does this mean in general and specifically for testing?
M. Nathaniel: Being agile is simply being able to respond quickly to change — it’s a simple concept, but one that requires a lot of groundwork in practice. For example, let’s say a developer makes a code change to an existing program.
The code itself is written quickly, but what is needed to ensure that it will then work in production? The code needs to be installed on a test environment, the test environment itself needs to be set up and configured before that, and the program needs to be tested in every conceivable combination with other programs. It is enormously important that the developer gets quick feedback on whether he needs to adjust his code again. If you can get through all these processes within an hour, you are agile. If, instead, the developer must wait weeks or even months to find out how his code change will affect the entire code base, you have no chance in the modern development market.
„The coming year will be very exciting … I think.“
corimamagazin: Can we expect further quantum leaps to result from automated testing?
M. Nathaniel: Yes, definitely. And not only that. There are also projects in all the other teams in our development department that will drastically decrease our internal lead times. The coming year will be very exciting in this respect, I think.
corimamagazin: Among your hobbies, you’ve listed mathematics, AI, and music. Then your instrument must be a synthesizer, right?
M. Nathaniel: While I really like the idea of an instrument that can do everything, my learned instruments are piano and guitar. In general, I like to hear „real“ stringed instruments like violin or bass. There’s just nothing like the natural sound of an orchestra during a live concert.
corimamagazin: It’s reassuring that despite all your digital life and work, you still have a passion for analogue art. Thank you Martin for these extremely exciting insights and we are already curious about what will happen next in test automation. I am sure we will hear from you again soon, probably in June at this year’s COPS UserTreff.