I’ve heard recently that a lot of folks use blog posts as a bit of a memory aid 🤔 🧠
They link to stuff they’ve read or perhaps want to read later while its fresh in their mind so they can go back and look later down the line.
I’m going to try this out with a few of the best things I’ve read or seen this week (week ending 7th Jan 2024). I’ve included links to everything so I can go back and check it out later, but feel free to take a look yourself if you’re reading this – it was mostly written for me but that’s no reason you can’t benefit from it too lovely reader!
API Masters Platform
APIDays have created a new free learning site called ApiMasters – https://www.home.apimasters.io/. think of it like a Test Automation University for APIs. It already has several free, non-sponsored courses in there from industry professionals that I’ve managed to complete, and I hope to see more development here in the coming months. Highly recommend for anyone who wants to learn APIs more broadly e.g. API product management, API Security, API Documentation ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐
Designing APIs that stand the test of time
Speaking of APIs, I’ve been checking out Pooja Mistry‘s talk she did at API Days Interface. I like seeing talks aimed at API developers and designers, because it feels like you get to see how the sausage is made. It actually helps quality engineers a lot, because you can see the typical issues that a lot of a developers have when crafting APIs, and examples of what good looks like so you can refer to these when testing APIs of your own. I was lucky enough to meet Pooja in person at Agile Days Chicago last year, and she’s just an incredibly cool person – anyone who can explain techy concepts to non-techy folks always gets my vote!
Things Wot I Have Asked ChatGPT this week
I bought myself a chatGPT subscription for Christmas (don’t laugh!) and am still using it, but not necessarily for the high-fallutin’ reasons I originally thought I would!
It actually reminds me of an earlier experience I had. I once contracted for a small start up, who were making really cool home security cameras. They were bought out by a bigger company whilst I was there, and the bigger company made a really good point about marketing. They said:-
There’s a huge difference between people’s buying intention and what they actually use something for. People buy indoor cameras because they care about home security, and *think* they want to use them to prevent intruders and very scary situations from happening. But the product is actually rarely used for that purpose. In fact, 99% of the time the camera is used to take cute photo’s of the dog.
And I kinda think that chatGPT is becoming like this for me, at least until I find a good use for it. I’m glad its there when I need to ask it something incredibly high brow and stuff, but in the cold light of day what I’ve actually been using it for is to get to what I need without wading through Cookie notifications (that I always decline so can get painful), Ads or content that I don’t need. For this it is incredibly useful. For example:
- Give me a 15 question quiz with answers on the first three Harry Potter books (these are all that my little boy has read so far and he hasn’t yet seen the movies so getting a specific set of questions without the appalling sign up on the Harry Potter website is great!)
- Summarise how to solve a Rubik’s cube
- Does UK accent bias exist? I’m very interested in this topic, having seen something on TV about it a few months back. I’m toying with the idea of doing a talk, but wanted to do some research first. (spoiler alert, it does exist).
- Dall-e – generate an image of microscopic close up art of an eyelash
- Identify 5 trends in software testing in 2024, show your sources
All of this was done from my phone, mostly while I was a passenger in a car, or watching TV. I also experimented with Bing and Bard, to see if they gave similar answers to the same question – definitely worth knowing this and trying alternatives if your AI isn’t giving you what you need!
A Realistic World View on AI adoption: Getting AI Ready in 2024
Great blog post from the Ferrio team.
Software Testing Weekly – issue 204
I subscribe to Dawid Dylowicz fantastic testing roundup, so when an email lands in my inbox I immediately check out two or three of the articles that stick out to me. This week it was a Reddit thread on QA skills learned – I don’t usually view Reddit but the posts on there are usually the ones that feel most honest and uncensored, so its a useful prompt for me to get links to good threads.
Ministry of Testing
I usually check out a couple of things on MoT every week, because its such a trusted source of information to me. I enjoy Friday afternoon live LinkedIn sessions with Simon Tomes (community Boss) as anyone can jump in, and so you feel like sometimes the unstructured convo’s that bubble up on there can really get you thinking. Ditto Club posts. I also read Ady Stokes article about Making Your Presentations More Accessible. Keeping on top of accessibility is super important, and next time I have a new presentation I’ll come back to this article to double check the accessibility considerations I’ve made are good ones.
Summary
And that’s it for this week – hope you re-read this in the future Beth!
Beth The Tester's Tales 
It seems that link to apidays is incorrect 😉
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Thanks Alexey – updated
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