This meeting was a roundtable discussion on the topics covered in the NoVaTAIG meetings of 2011, and a discussion of test automation challenges ahead in 2012. We summarized and discussed hilites of the NoVaTAIG 2011 meetings, and then discussed test automation challenges ahead in 2012 - attendees discussed their individual project's test automation challenges as well as general industry test automation challenges.

Took place on: Wed. January 11 2012 6:30 PM

Attendance: 11

• During a discussion of code reviews, the 11 attendees were surveyed and 4 had been involved in test automation code reviews. It was mentioned that just the knowledge that automation code would be reviewed would cause an improvement in the automation code. Also it helpoed everyone on a team get on the same page with coding practices and standardizations, and could be a method of getting testers new to automation up to speed.
• There was a mention of doing code swaps/rotations as a way to encourage robust and clear automation coding
• During the review of the automated security testing meeting that took place in Jan. 2011, it was noted that the meeting had a large turnout but that no one at the Jan 2012 meeting had ever been in involved in security testing.
• Jeff Offut from GMU gave a talk on 'Cost Benefits Arguments for Automation and Coverage' at the August 2011 meeting; someone mentioned that his colleage at GMU Paul Ammann gave a talk on Model-Driven Test Design at the recent local Verify conference and discussed combinatorial testing.
• Some interests expressed for 2012 included: Frameworks - STAF and PyUnit were mentioned; there was a question regarding sql injection issues; there was a mention of issues in testability of web appearance vs functionality; there was discussion of testability issues such as those related to sites using node.js and fully dynamically generated web pages.