Issue #217 : Software Testing Notes
Checking Isn’t Testing
Hello there! 👋
Welcome to the 217th 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:
Measuring for AI success and quality improvement
How JavaScript Executes Code — Concepts Every QA Engineer Should Understand
The DevSecOps Guide to Automated Web Security Testing
XPath Demystified: Smart Locators for Modern Testing
How we test color palettes before they ship in scientific figures
and more…
📚 Testing
Measuring for AI success and quality improvement by Lisa Crispin
Quality metrics are usually treated like a shortcut to better software, but Lisa Crispin argues they only matter when tied to small, deliberate experiments.
Checking Isn’t Testing. Soon It Won’t Be Employment Either by Keith Klain
This is less a defense of testers than a warning that too many confused repetitive checking with actual investigative work, and Keith Klain shares how AI is about to expose the difference brutally.
Testing: The Art of Unlearning by Jeff Nyman
Another great piece by Jeff Nyman comparing between scientific revolutions and software testing, I enjoyed how it connects Galileo, Einstein, and modern AI testing.
Tests Don’t Just Break, They Communicate by Johnny Nilsson
Johnny Nilsson argues that testing discussions have become obsessed with labels while ignoring the more important question of what kind of confidence a test actually provides.
🔍 Software Testing
⚙️ Automation
How JavaScript Executes Code — Concepts Every QA Engineer Should Understand by Smita Dash
Smita Dash shares a practical walkthrough of the JavaScript concepts QA engineers usually learn too late, after spending hours debugging flaky UI behavior.
What Would You Stop Doing When UI Tests Are Flaky? by David Mello
David Mello starts this article as an interview question breakdown but turns into a much sharper discussion about how experienced QA engineers think under ambiguity and diagnose flaky system.
DOM State Clarity With cy.depends Command by Gleb Bahmutov
Gleb Bahmutov explores a smarter way to write Cypress tests by treating the UI as a set of possible states instead of waiting blindly for one happy path to appear.
XPath Demystified: Smart Locators for Modern Testing by Dhiraj
This is a solid refresher on XPath fundamentals along tradeoff discussion between XPath and CSS selectors in test automation
Practicing Playwright: Visual Testing With Playwright by Thomas F. - T.J. - Maher, Jr.
Thomas F. shares a practical introduction to Playwright’s built in visual testing, but the more interesting discussion is about the operational cost that arrives once snapshot testing scales beyond a handful of checks.
Speaking of Playwright, If want to get started with it, Željko Šević wrote a quick guide to get you started → Browser automation with Playwright
Prompt Test Personas and Templates by Andrejs Doronins
Andrejs Doronins makes a compelling case that AI testing workflows work better with narrowly scoped personas instead of one giant “universal tester” prompt trying to do everything at once.
🔍 Test Automation
🌞 Accessibility
How we test color palettes before they ship in scientific figures
How to test for color palettes? read this article and find out.
Session Timeouts: The Overlooked Accessibility Barrier In Authentication Design by Eleanor Hecks
Session timeouts are usually treated like a security setting. Eleanor Hecks makes the case that they’re also an accessibility issue..
🔍 Accessibility Testing
🔒 Security
OWASP ZAP Deep Dive: The DevSecOps Guide to Automated Web Security Testing by Sushant Sur
Most teams already run unit tests and CI pipelines. Sushant Sur explains why that still isn’t enough and shares a walkthrough of spiders, passive vs. active scans, Docker workflows, and CI integration makes DevSecOps feel much more operational and less like a buzzword.
🔍 Security Testing
🛠️ Resources & Tools
Agentic QA — Multi-agent AI system that autonomously plans, writes, executes, and reports tests for REST APIs, web UIs, and Python codebases.
Agentic Test Explorer — An agnostic AI-driven exploratory test framework created by Oscar Barrios Torrero that intelligently explores, tests, and validates any application
Practical Testing Docs — This site helps you test better - whether you’re a tester or a developer looking for quick, effective testing ideas.
QA Claude Skill — 24 production-grade QA workflow skills for Claude Code — from spec to release.
📝 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
How I Test the Same Feature Three Ways: UI, API, and DB by Daniel Cawen
What Makes Good Context For AI-Generated Tests? by Puja Jagani
Quality Insight: The "Reach Out" Rule, But For Testing by Judy Mosley
😂 And Finally,
This is what happens when you let AI test everything🤣
📨 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)