Erik Erskine talks about automated testing at Drupal Dev Days Bulgaria
Are you keen to start running automated tests but don’t know where to start? If you’re attending this month’s Drupal Developer Days, this session by senior developer Erik Erskine should give you the knowledge you need to take the first steps.
Automated testing should form an important part of any project, and the benefits are immense. Yet even though it’s universally acknowledged as a good thing, it’s not done nearly enough.
Annertech backend developer Erik Erskine hopes to demystify the concept of automated testing with a session on this topic at Drupal Developer Days this month.
This popular gathering of Drupal developers takes place in Burgas, Bulgaria, from Wednesday 26 to Friday 28 June, and Erik’s talk is called Retrofitting Tests to an Existing Project.
The idea for this presentation came after Erik found himself working on an existing site, wishing he had written automated tests earlier. It’s a situation many developers often find themselves in.
“Retrofitting automated testing is something I've been working on recently that I had to figure out,” explains Erik.
“Everyone agrees it's a good thing, yet it takes a lot of thought and often doesn't get done. Why is that? I wanted to share the journey, both to help other people and to help me understand if I'm doing this right.”
“There are lots of people – like me – who don't know where to start when it comes to automated testing. I hope this talk will give people confidence and enough knowledge to take their first few steps. If testing happens because of this talk, where it would otherwise not have been, I'll be happy!”
– Erik Erskine
At Annertech, our developers recently undertook some significant refactoring of a project, and wanted to safeguard that process as much as possible. During development some rudimentary scripts were put in place to check for regressions. Over time these have evolved, but even though they were quite informal initially, the important thing is that they were done.
This experience will form the background for Erik’s talk. Erik believes that it is never too late to start automated testing – and one test is better than none.
Aim
Participants will come away with a means to get started writing tests for existing sites.
Erik will cover
- overcoming initial hurdles and getting the first test done
- how to test a site with real data
- how to use PHPUnit to test a fully installed site with content and configuration
- writing testable code
Who would benefit most from this session?
This is primarily for backend developers, so familiarity with PHP and writing bespoke Drupal code is assumed.
You don't need experience with any particular testing framework. In fact, this talk will be most beneficial for those who don't.
- Retrofitting Tests to an Existing Project takes place in Room 2 (FFW) from 3.20pm to 4.10pm on Friday, 28 June, Bulgarian time, which is GMT+3. Add it to your calendar.
See you at Drupal Developer Days Bulgaria
If you haven’t got your tickets yet they’re available until 26 June.
Alison Visser Head of Content
After more than two decades in journalism, Alison now collaborates with Annertech's clients to ensure that their content is the best it possibly can be.
