IT/QA Solutions for Tough Times

Nobody will argue with the sentiment that times are very tough. But times have been tough before, and somehow we got through them. And then things got better.

In times of budget cuts, hiring freezes and diminished headcount, it makes sense to pay special attention to the "total cost of ownership" for technical quality assurance, monitoring and performance validation solutions, because nobody can afford the costs of lost customers.

If you figure the benefits of gained productivity, ease of use, quickness to good results, overall flexibility, lower infrastructure and labor costs, we think eValid is truly a "tough time solution," where you can get a lot done with little effort, and at a very moderate price. Applying/introducing eValid in your IT/QA department will help cut costs and reap big dividends.

It's something to think about, so let us hear how eValid can be the cost effective alternative that helps your organization remain competitive and be positioned for success.

A Simple DOM Manipulation Example

We have been getting a lot of questions recently about how eValid handles interactions that require pure-DOM operations.

Of course, most of what you can do by constructing an eValid script to manipulate the DOM can be done with a recorded (captured) script, but in some cases there are conveninence and generality factors involved.

For example, you might want the scrip to be used in a systematic over very large numbers of differenc instances. Or, you may want to confirm/validate non-obvious internal details about DOM element settings?

Here's our simple illustration script that uses the main DOM manipulations Illustration of DOM Manipulation Capabilities. This example uses most of the capabilites: value input/output, the ability to find particular DOM elements, and the ability to act on them by modify values DOM attibute level.

Mutation Is Back

Sometimes good ideas never make it, and sometimes they do. Mutation analysis, a notion that goes back to the 1980's (and generated a big controversy in the test community then), appears headed for renewed interest.

Check out the 4th International Workshop on Mutation Analysis, part of the ICST 2009 Conference set for April 2009 in Boulder, Colorado, USA.

For those who don't know what the fuss is about, mutation analysis methods test the quality of a test suite by applying it to versions of the software product under test that have had "mutations" seeded inside; if the suite detects the errors, great; if it doesn't, then you know something is deficient. By the way, "product" here doesn't have to be live code (although it could be) and may include specifications, designs, or other types of objects It's an idea that may be worth looking into.