Programming Projects

To enhance my development skill set, I have been working on a few side projects. More can be found on my GitHub site. To see general blog entries on building automated test frameworks, go to the Table of Contents.

Are you sure the buses are still listed?
Data-driven API tests with Ruby + NET::HTTP + ThoughtWorks Gauge

September 2019

• Part One: Setting up the test plan and table data in a spec file
• Part Two: Interacting with the MBTA API using NET::HTTP
• Source Code: https://github.com/tjmaher/gauge-ruby-api

Introduction to Capybara: A TestAutomationU course
May 2019

• Part One: Setup and Installation of Ruby + Bundler, Capybara, and RSpec
• Part Two: Arrange, Act, Assert! Testing Links and Navigation, Setting Expectations, and Searching Within
• Part Three: Finders and Matchers
• Part Four: Testing a Login Page, refactoring it into a method
• Part Five: Dropdowns, Radio Buttons, and Checkboxes
• Part Six: Handling Alerts and Modals
• Part Seven: Advanced Topics such as Screenshots, Headless Chrome, Capybara's headless Apparition driver, and adding Applitools. 
• Source Code: https://github.com/tjmaher/tau-capybara

Basic Capybara-Gauge 
December 2018

• Part One: Analyzing The-Internet
• Part Two: Setup Ruby Environment
• Part Three: Setup Capybara to Test Opening Chrome
• Part Four: Add Option For Chrome Headless
• Part Five: Add Test Steps and Spec Implementations
• Part Six: Setup Chrome and ChromeDriver Logging
• Part Seven: Rubocop Code Review
• Source Code: https://github.com/tjmaher/capybara-gauge

Discovering Docker
Spring & Summer 2018

• Starting a Selenium Grid using AWS + SeleniumHQ Docker images + Docker Compose
• Setting up Ubuntu Linux with Docker
• Basic Chef + Test Kitchen: Setting up Ubuntu with Vagrant + Virtual Box + the Test-Kitchen Ruby Gem on a MacBook

Tinkering with Twitter
October 2017

• Part One: Twitter and the Twitter Search API
• Part Two: Getting the Twitter credentials: Consumer Keys and Access Tokens
• Part Three: Setting up an API Testing Environment with Twitter4J
• Part Four: Post a Tweet Using Twitter4J To Interact With the Twitter API
• GitHub: Review the source code for the project.

Build a Basic Appium Framework
May 2017 - June 2017

• Part One: Review How to Inspect Mobile Apps with Appium Desktop
• Part Two: Design a Basic Test, Examining Mobile Elements with Appium Desktop
• Part Three: Install and Launch an App Using Desired Capabilities
• Part Four: Set up the Page Objects, Page Factories and Tests
• Part Five: Download the tests and run them on your own MacBook!
• Part Six:  How to create and launch an Android emulator from Android Studio
• Part Seven: What happens behind the scenes as Appium installs and launches an Android app? Examining and footnoting a log file.
• GitHub: Review the source code for the project. 

Learning Appium Desktop
April 2017

• Part One: What is Appium Server and How Do You Start It With Appium Desktop
• Part Two:  How to Connect To Your Android Device Using the Android SDK, the Android Command Line Tools, and the Android Debug Bridge
• Part Three:  Setting up remote devices through WiFi
• Part Four:  Setting up Android Emulators with Android Virtual Device Manager (avd), choosing the Android operating system version
• Part Five:  Find the Desired Capabilities: appPackage and appActivity. Bug in AAPT if giving just appName
• Part Six:  Inspecting an Android app using Appium Desktop

Learning Serenity BDD
March 2017

• Serenity BDD: An Automation Framework That Uses Specification by Example (SBE)
• What is the Difference Between TDD and BDD?
• Studying BDD using The Cucumber Book and BDD in Action
• Scaffolding a new project using Maven Archetypes
• Reviewing The Serenity Screenplay Tutorial

Are You Sure the Bus Line is Listed? Gathering data using REST APIs and REST Assured:
February 2017

• Don't Gather Data from the MBTA's website. Use a RESTful Endpoint Instead!
• Interacting with MBTA's API using REST Assured

Building a Geb + Groovy + Spock project with Yeoman:
November 2016

• About Yeoman, scaffolding, and other tooling applications
• A Step-by-Step Process: Installing and Configuring Yeoman using Chris Hluchan's Geb Generator
• Running the Built-In Tests From the Command Line, and Examining How They Are Set Up
• Initial Source Code Generated by the Geb Generator

SDET Prepwork:

I have shifted from being an automation engineer to being a Software Developer in Test. In order to keep up, I have written a few blogs entries about what I need to learn:

• What is an SDET? Intro to the Efficiency of Sorting Algorithms: Insertion sort vs Merge sort (7/24/2016)
• What is Big O notation and Logs? Comparing Growth Rate in Algorithms (7/25/2016)

Playing with Protractor:
September 2016

• Testing an AngularJS application with Protractor, Jasmine, and JavaScript
• Walkthrough of installing PhoneCat Tutorial App: How to learn AngularJS
• The complexities of testing JavaScript frameworks, according to Vojtěch Jína, creator of the Karma Test Runner

RESTful API Testing with Postman and Newman:
July 2016

Article covers "What is an API?" and gives sample APIs on the web. Also shows

• Walkthrough Setting up a Postman Test
• How to download and configure Newman, how Postman runs tests from the command line

Configuring Build.Gradle Environments:
June 2016

• IntelliJ: Setting up WebDriver framework in Gradle
• Eclipse: Setting up WebDriver framework in Gradle
• A Bit About Groovy

The Builder Pattern:
April 2016 - May 2016

• Anti-Pattern: Telescoping Constructors
• Investigating Address Builder
• GitHub, T.J. Maher

RESTful Testing with Stripe and Apache HttpComponents:
Feb 2016 - March 2016

• Introduction
• Part One: Intro to REST APIs
• Part Two: Interacting with Stripe using http and cURL
• Part Three: API Keys, Property files, and Initial Setup
• Part Four: UriBuilder, HttpGet and other Apache HttpComponents
• Part Five: From JSON to Object: HttpEntity and GSON
• Source Code: GitHub, T.J. Maher

Automate Amazon 
Dec 2015 - Jan 2016

How to develop a rudimentary framework to create automated tests for Amazon.

• Introduction
• Setup a Development Environment 
• Sketch Out a Use Case 
• Common Utility Methods
• Writing a Sign In Test
• Product Enums, Product Objects, and Pojos
• Initialize Cart and Login
• Writing the Shopping Cart Test

Testing The-Internet
June - July 2015

Writing automated tests versus Dave Haeffner's Login page on his test site, The-Internet.

• Step One: Sketch out the simple manipulation of a Login page
• Step Two: Draft Common Utilities
• Step Three: Storing Constants: static finals vs enums
• Step Four: Storing Locators for Web Elements
• Step Five: The Page Object Model
• Step Six: Writing the Automated Test