... somewhere in Texas: "I do not like the internet; it scares me. So from now on the internet is now a part of the axis of evil. Watch out internets of the world, you have been warned."
XP http://www.extremeprogramming.org/ has a lot of relevance here. A lot of the concepts put forth in XP have direct impact on your choices for how QA works. As is the XP way, you don't have to do the whole package, but here's some things that I've found very useful:
1. Strict adherence to the test first methodology (JUnit). It isn't enough to just write test cases, without nightly (or frequent) builds JUnits loose a lot of their effectiveness - especially in large groups. In addition, having regular code reviews to make sure people aren't just blowing smoke is essential.
2. Early and often QA cycles. Not only will the development team love this, so will your product owners. Here's a good starter for the http://www.extremeprogramming.org/rules/releaseoft en.html release often concept. Doing this will make your QA cycles much more effective and manageable.
3. Don't over automate. Automation can be a very effective tool; however, there must balance.
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... somewhere in Texas: "I do not like the internet; it scares me. So from now on the internet is now a part of the axis of evil. Watch out internets of the world, you have been warned."
1. Strict adherence to the test first methodology (JUnit). It isn't enough to just write test cases, without nightly (or frequent) builds JUnits loose a lot of their effectiveness - especially in large groups. In addition, having regular code reviews to make sure people aren't just blowing smoke is essential.
2. Early and often QA cycles. Not only will the development team love this, so will your product owners. Here's a good starter for the http://www.extremeprogramming.org/rules/releaseoft en.html release often concept. Doing this will make your QA cycles much more effective and manageable.
3. Don't over automate. Automation can be a very effective tool; however, there must balance.
As for tools (sorry pretty Java centric here), I'd suggest starting with:
- http://htmlunit.sourceforge.net/
- http://jakarta.apache.org/cactus
- http://httpunit.sourceforge.net/