iOS Testing Strategy

Recently our team at Kiprosh started using FoneMonkey for Automation testing of iOS apps. FoneMonkey is free and has strong support for both iPad and iPhone devices.

Here are the various tools that we evaluated and shortlisted for iOS testing and then finalized our testing strategy for iOS apps (tools marked in color green are recommended)

Unit Testing

• Built in XCode based unit testing using OCUnit - (little complicated and requires too many steps to create the unit test, process isn't automated)
• GTM - Google Toolbox for Mac - (suitable) http://code.google.com/p/google-toolbox-for-mac/wiki/iPhoneUnitTesting
• GHUnit - (most suitable, easy to setup, has GUI, but documentation and other build issues)
• Mocking - OCMock and OCHamrest

Automation Testing tools and framework

• FoneMonkey by Gorilla Logic (http://www.gorillalogic.com/fonemonkey) - Free and easy to use
• Sikuli (http://www.sikuli.org/index.shtml)
• Bromine (http://code.google.com/p/bromine/)
• Frank (programmatic functional tests) Blend of Cucumber
• UIAutomation Instrument (Record and play) [JBehave, Cucumber] - (programmatic functional tests)
• Cucumber (http://cukes.info/) - OpenSource
• DeviceAnywhere (Commercial)
• KIF (Keep it functional) - OpenSource

Integration / Automated Builds

• Hudson with xcodebuild
• Code coverage (gcovr) with Cobertura XML

Testing Strategy

Finally we formulated following testing strategy for iOS apps

1) GHUnit for unit testing

2) With memory management, we must verify that when allocation fails we get expected return value as nil rather than garbage

3) Automation test suite (using FoneMonkey mostly or Sikuli or DeviceAnywhere)

4) Finally plug all the unit tests and automation test suite with CI using Hudson

5) Integrate often

JRuby + BIRT Reporting + TorqueBox = Enterprise Reporting Solution with Seamless Integration

Recently I got an opportunity to work on a rails application to implement an enterprise solution using JRuby + BIRT reporting + Torquebox and Trinidad. All an all a great learning experience in integrating all these latest technologies to build an enterprise and reporting solution. We are still improving performance for BIRT reporting. Torquebox provides lots of flexibility and high performance in deployments. JRuby is a year older now and came up with various bug fixes so it again helps. We used Trinidad too that became our default application server to use with JRuby.

This kind of solution is ideal for the Rails app containing blend of Java and Ruby as architectural stack that heavily wants to reuse, consume stable reporting platform such as BIRT (offers rich variety of reports to an application). Rails stack lacks heavy reporting and readily available solution that delivers rich set of features in all the available formats. Thus BIRT is a good fit for solution that wants to implement reporting in Rails app with the help of Java ecosystem. BIRT offers charting engine too along with features for Lists, Crosstabs, Compound reports etc. Easy integration, rich documentation, lots of active forums for help adds good points in favor of BIRT and thus we tried it in our application.

Give others and yourself an 'A' today !

Came across this nice article with stories on rewarding others and yourself an 'A' in advance.
Article - Give yourself an 'A' today! It makes a difference.

This makes sense and I must admit that directly or indirectly I was using this before too without any thought or doubt of weighing this as a good or bad practice despite having fairly above average results in both professional and personal life. Well quite debatable as it gets sometimes, but worth a try to experience first hand.

Websites as Graph

Recently came across this cool online tool that enables to view websites as graph
http://aharef.info/2006/05/websites_as_graphs.htm
http://www.aharef.info/static/htmlgraph/

Tried this on portal / web app we implemented and here is how their DOM elements look like

1) Saralsociety.com



2) Oncocure.com

API - Face recognition across the Web

A very interesting yet useful API launched by Face.com is making rounds and expanding across the web quickly. "CelebrityFindr, Tagger Widget and Poster Yourself" already uses Face.com technology.

Developers can now tap into Face.com’s technology to add facial recognition to all kinds of web apps for free via the open API.

Well i m trying it out in one of our web app so will post review. Face.com claims that its technology can identify faces even in poor lighting or poor focus; or when subjects are wearing glasses, facial hair, and supposedly even Halloween costumes.

The company’s technology was recently used in an impressive social Augmented Reality app.

I couldn't find any other free API for facial recognition which is so powerful.

Allan Jardine accepted my jQuery code for his next version of the plugin

Famous jquery plugins "DataTable" and "KeyTable" developer Allan Jardine has accepted my code (reusable function) to be included in his next version of KeyTable jQuery plugin.

He posted it here http://tlc2.hg.sourceforge.net/hgweb/tlc2/tlc2/rev/131b0899cc67

Here is the mail transcript with him

________________________________

On 10 May 2010, at 1:15, Allan Jardine wrote:

Hi Rohan,

Very nice idea for an API function. I've just updated KeyTable to 1.1.5 and including a function which basically provides exactly the same functionality, but with the name fnSetPosition and it will take either x,y coordinates or a TD node to focus on.

Thanks for sending me this.

Regards,

Allan

On 8 May 2010, at 12:16, Rohan Daxini wrote:

Hi Alan,

For your information and just to keep you posted, I added this new function in KeyTable plugin to resolve multiple issues I was facing while attaching KeyTable to my DataTable. Now I just call this function as keys.fnSetPositionAndFocus(0, 0) in my javacript code to refocus on cell[0,0]. This can be used to reset and refocus on any cell of DataTable as the selection and focus were lost.

All the issues like reattachment, refocus, reselection, repeated cell selection and lost blue rectangle is resolved now due to the inclusion of this api function

this.fnSetPositionAndFocus = function(x, y) {
_iOldX = x;
_iOldY = y;
_fnRemoveFocus(_nOldFocus);
_fnSetFocus(_fnCellFromCoords(x, y));

var str = 'table tbody ' + 'tr:eq(' + y + ')>td:eq(' + x + ')';
$(str).addClass('focus');
}

Thanks,
Rohan

Yo Ti Fy

Sat down to wander if I can have a new way to use internet. Instead of 'google'ing and 'bing'ing information I need, let someone deliver it to me based on my defined sets and preferences.
(I just wanted to negate my thought that most of us see search engines as the hub for our internet experiences, though its true uptill great extent.)

I started writting a small service for this task. Meanwhile I came across Yotify - a site which caters to specific task of tracking updates and information that pertains to our topic of interest such as an event, an item for sale on ebay, cragslist, an RSS feed, headlines etc etc.. (like a flavor of Google Alerts and Yahoo Alerts but broader in scope)

On Yotify.com, users track anything they deem worth tracking by sending out ’scouts’ that send back regular reports on a particular sports headline, job listing, real estate posting, etc. The frequency of updates can be set to a daily or hourly amount, and different preferences can be selected so that when users send a scout out to monitor an item on Craigslist, for example, they can find out when the price drops to the amount they’re willing to pay. Searches are also area-specific, and users can specify the state and area where they want relevant results from.

Transcript of a chat with Rob Bouganim, Yotify's CEO
http://arstechnica.com/old/content/2008/09/hands-on-and-invites-yotify-your-personal-web-secretary.ars

"Game" it up

In the hunt to break the "monotonous" routine of sprinting and activities for my team, I thought to experiment with a "Gaming" contest at Kiprosh. I picked up couple of strategy games from http://freeonlinegames.com.

We had 1 hr gameful of fun and laughter with interesting "quick" meetings to invent and come up with new strategies for improving scores (as I gave certain scoring target to be a winner). At the end it become very addictive to leave but team quickly became more charged up and rejuvenated.

It also helped us as team to keep on changing couple of strategies and not to repeat mistakes to achieve higher scores & goals.

Being KIS'ed

I started my journey this March'2010 towards building Kiprosh with foundation, goals and strong inclination towards

• Innovation
• KIS (keep it simple)
• Write Less Do More
• "wow" factor (my favorite and very close to my heart) in whatever we develop or deliver
  

Though its very early to comment but "KIS (keep it simple) yet effective" way of doing things in whatever we do is helping us achieve other important goals too.

I will appreciate thoughts / comments about your experience and experiments on the subject.

N2 vs. Umbraco - CMS made easy

Few days back I was evaluating open source ASP.NET based Content Management System (CMS). I shortlisted 2 of them for my purpose i.e N2 and Umbraco. Competition was not even close as N2 was a clear winner. Though both are categorically advised to be consumed based on web content management requirements i.e. Umbraco is preferable for heavy (or large) and N2 for light (or medium to small) contents.

Umbraco is well positioned in developer community as N2 is pretty new. Umbraco's user base is huge comparatively but still N2 delivers due to its sheer simplicity. I like KIS (Keep It Simple) philosophy while development and N2 enables me to deliver keeping KIS into consideration.

Thanks to Shivani for helping me finalize one of the CMS for our purpose.