Microsoft patterns & practices has release Testing for Continuous Delivery with Visual Studio 2012 RC the guide describes how testing has been changing over the years and how Visual Studio 2012 RC helps us achieve continuous delivery. Just to get your interest here is a statement from the preface.
“Testing has always been the less glamorous sister to software development, scarcely noticed outside the software business, and the butt of complaints inside.”
I had the privilege of working on this book with the author’s as a contributor and reviewer.
Visual Studio 2012 RC is available.
VS Ultimate RC
Visual Studio 2012 Application Lifecycle Management Virtual Machine and Hands-on-Labs / Demo Scripts
Testa 
Agile.org has some create webcasts on subjects concerning Agile, Scrum. You can either sign up to them or go to the archive listing. Couple of interest are:
Agile Practices in a Traditional Organization
Adopting Test-First Development
Release Duration and Enterprise Agility
On May 15th is Agile and Quality: It is not an Oxymoron but a Necessity
Click here to check out the public webcast series.
Testa 
Microsoft is storyboarding the process of code coverage for manual testing. They are also looking for you to complete a quick survey on the subject. The Visual Studio ALM team are asking for our help so let’s give it to them. Click below to do the survey.
Code Coverage for Manual Testing Survey
This is how tools get made that we will use, thanks for helping.
Testa 
If you are interested in following
any of the MSDN Forum’s there is a gadget you can download that makes access to
your favourite threads quick and simple.
Download here.
Testa [:)]
It is Methodology May at the TALMUG
Methodology. In the world of software development there are not many words that raise contention quite as quickly as this. But why is that? What are the differences between Agile, Iterative, and Rigorous software development methodologies? There has been buzz about Scrum, XP, Lean, Waterfall, Kanban, and RUP for years; how do they fit into this discussion? But most importantly, why should you care? What does the test team think of all this?
In Methodology May the TALMUG brings you a panel of ALM professionals to discuss and debate these very questions and maybe help you see what methodology could work best at your company.
Pizza and Pop will be available at 5:30pm - Come out and join in on the discussions.
Being held at 40 University, Suite 1301, Toronto meeting starts at 6pm.
Follow on twitter @TOALMUG
Click here to Sign Up
Testa 
Typemock is presenting a webcast “Introduction to Unit Testing” if your a tester this will be a good intro into unit testing. Pass this onto your developers even if they unit test.
Software testing isn’t just a task for QA. In order to prevent bugs and release quality code to market, you also need developer testing, including unit testing. Discover why you should start unit testing, and how you can get started with automated tests quickly.
Click below to register
Introduction to Unit Testing
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Karthik K.K has posted on LinkedIn (click to see) a chart that compares the features of Visual Studio & Test Manager to Quick Test Professional (QTP).
I like the last item:
| Visual Studio 2010 Test | QTP | Who’s Best |
| VSTS is cheaper and can be used for both development & testing. | QTP is costlier and can be used ONLY for testing. | VSTS |
VSTS can also be used by Business Analyst, Project Managers, and Stakeholders. It can assist teams being Agile or Scrum or Waterfall thru a process template. The process template can be customized to meet your company need. VSTS reports on all aspects of a project and can tell you at any time where in the project you are at, the quality of the project to date, the status of your requirements/user stories. You can have a “Requirement to Test Matrix” in seconds at anytime.
If this alone has got your attention and you want to know more contact me directly.
Testa 
Harry Baran from Thoughtworks posted a blog that I think is very much worth sharing. Harry outlines in his posting some of the difference between unit testing in Agile to the Traditional approach.
Unit testing in any process needs to be getting the attention it deserves, if done right it can be an early quality indicator for the solution under development. Test teams need to get involved in unit testing to some capacity no matter what process/methodology being followed. Pair up your developers and testers, offer training to your testers in unit testing and coding, hire testers with coding skills, let your testers see and understand what is being unit tested.
To quote Harry Baran: “Unit tests are foundations of an agile project. They enable fast feedback, continuous testing, continuous integration and refactoring.”
As children we were taught to share, for some reason one of the most important aspects of developing an application has not been shared. Time to change that, isn’t it?
Unit Testing: Agile vs. Traditional Approach
Great write up Hari, thanks,
Testa 
The first Toronto VS ALM User Group kick off meeting is being held on April 12th @6:30pm sign up at TALMUG to get the details and register.
The User Group is for all roles within the Application Life Management team. Topics presented will vary from generic ALM practices to ALM with Visual Studio. If your involved in product management, a stakeholder, a business analysis or product owner, a developer or a tester this User Group is for you.
The goal of the first meeting will be to:
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Define the group’s mission
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Select an appropriate name
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Document the roles of the executive
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Recruit volunteers
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Funding
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Discuss how to reach out for sponsors
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Discuss meeting locations
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Discuss ideas for the first few meeting topics
Come out on April 12th and help us to kick-off this new user group code named TALMUG.
Testa 
In the blog Functional/System testing with Visual Studio/Test Manager we talked about unit testing. Testers in the near future are going to need unit testing skills. Now that is a very scary statement given 70% of testing is done manually. Now is the time to start learning by taking programming courses, unit testing courses, pairing with developers to learn and searching the web.
In the Visual Studio magazine Jeff Levinson article Take Unit Testing to the Next Level talks about how to add unit tests to requirements to show test coverage. Jeff supplies code you can download and instructions on creating simple unit tests then how to link them to requirements. If you have Visual Studio give it a try.
Thanks Jeff
Testa 