Issue 185 - Software Testing Notes
Test Automation, AI, and The Tetris Principle
Hello there! 👋
Welcome to the 185th edition of Software Testing Notes, a weekly newsletter featuring must-read content on Software Testing. I hope this week has been good for you so far.
This week, we will explore:
5 Personas of a Tester
UI + API Test Automation Framework in Java
The Tetris Principle aka “Test as Low↓ as Possible”
When ChatGPT, Gemini, and DeepSeek Disagree on What to Test First
How to load test PostgreSQL database and not miss anything
and more…
✨ Featured
One Chrome Extension for All Your Testing Needs
Tired of juggling tabs and extensions while testing? The BrowserStack Testing Toolkit brings 10+ tools into one free Chrome extension.
The extension includes responsive testing, accessibility testing, visual overlays, AI-powered test‑case generation, bug capture, JSON formatting, and more. Install it today!
📚 Testing
Is QA Dead? by Anthony Delorie
Anthony Delorie shares critique of old testing habits and a call for QA professionals to embrace curiosity, tooling, and ownership in order to stay relevant in fast pacing world of software testing.
5 Personas of a Tester by Janka Hobbit
This is a fun and lighthearted take on the many hats QA professionals wear, from detective to negotiator to multitasker and beyond. By framing these roles as distinct “personalities,” Janka Hobbit reminds us that good testing is as much about adaptability and empathy as it is about finding bugs.
The Tetris Principle aka “Test as Low↓ as Possible” by Alex Schwartz
Alex Schwartz introduces us to the “Tetris Principle,” a memorable way to think about the Test Pyramid. After more than a decade of applying it in practice, Alex Schwartz shows how this principle speeds up feedback, reduces costs, and leads to clearer, more reliable results.
The QA Weapon: Storytelling — Why Saying Less and Showing More Is the Key by Marina Jordão
Rather than drowning yourself in dashboards and defect counts, the Marina Jordão shares a practical guide to showing more, saying less, and making quality feel tangible for teams, developers, and leadership alike.
🔍 More Curated Articles
⚙️ Automation
When ChatGPT, Gemini, and DeepSeek Disagree on What to Test First by berreceste
berreceste explores whether large language models can help prioritize software test cases through an experiment with Gemini, DeepSeek, and ChatGPT. You should read the results.
UI + API Test Automation Framework in Java (Cucumber, Selenium, Rest Assured, Allure) by Siddharth Kale
If you’ve ever wanted a clear, beginner-friendly way to combine UI and API tests in a single project, Siddharth Kale shares a walks through building a lightweight automation framework using Maven, Selenium, Cucumber, JUnit, Rest Assured, and Allure.
End-to-End UI Testing with Playwright and Pytest (Python) by Shubham Patil
Want to learn how to combine Playwright with powers of python? Shubham Patil takes us through setting up a working login test, then refactors it into a Page Object Model using Python and Playwright.
Lesser known Strengths of Playwright by Anjali Kulkarni
With Playwright’s support for API testing, Anjali Kulkarni walks through how to use its APIRequestContext to send HTTP requests, handle authentication, make assertions on responses, and even combine API and UI flows for end-to-end tests.
🔍 More Test Automation Articles
💨 Performance
How to load test PostgreSQL database and not miss anything
If you’ve ever used pgbench for PostgreSQL load testing, you’ll know how easy it is to lose track of the exact setup that produced your results. This article shares a custom wrapper around that so, not only it runs the tests but also captures full system and database configuration details, then generates structured reports in JSON and HTML.
🔍 More Performance Testing Articles
🛠️ Resources & Tools
FakeData — A simple web app to create and customize fake JSON data that you can copy or download as a .json file, with predefined sets in 10+ categories that are ready to use.
Jules — An experimental coding agent from Google that helps fix bugs, add documentation, and build new features. It integrates with GitHub, understands your codebase, and works asynchronously.
📝 List of Software Testers
Do you create content around Software Testing ? Submit yours blog details here and I will add it to the list.
🎁 Bonus Content
📌 OTHER INTERESTING STUFF
⭐ LAST WEEK'S MOST READ
Beyond Testing: A Holistic Approach to Software Quality by James K.
AI in QA: Insights from the Fourth Edition Software Testing & Quality Report
😂 And Finally,
Why fix the code when you can just make Bugs Illegal? 🤣
📨 Send Me Your Articles, Tutorials, Tools!
Wrote something? Send links via Direct Message on Twitter @TheTestingKit (details here). If you have any suggestions for improvement or corrections, feel free to reply to this email.
Thanks to everyone for subscribing and reading!
Happy Testing!
Pritesh(@priteshusdadiya)