These are your tests: Testing in the Mozilla Ecosystem

Yesterday marked my 3 month anniversary at Mozilla.  I’ve been soaking it all in.  Currently my job consists of leading automation for addons.mozilla.org web-site.  I write selenium tests and test infrastructure in python, code review tests and infrastructure written by other members in our community.

But that’s enough about me.  This post is all about you.

My favorite aspect of working at Mozilla is that every test I write or review is part of a community ecosystem that supports Mozilla’s mission of “promoting openness, innovation and opportunity on the web.”

Openness
The codebase that I work with is completely open in this github repository.  Anyone can download it, run the tests and play with them.  Thanks to the nurturing of our 2 selenium core commiters, David Burns, The Automated Tester and Dave Hunt, our team is also code-review-infected.  These code reviews are also completely open in the pull request section.

Innovation
Our team is fairly aggressive when it comes to trying new stuff. We are already talking about how to switch our tests over to Selenium 2 before the end of the year and I would be very surprised if mobile tests didn’t make an appearance in one form or another.

Opportunity
Because these tests are open, it’s an invitation to try something new with selenium that perhaps you wouldn’t get the chance to try otherwise.  If you work primarily with selenium and java, this is your chance to see the python bindings for selenium in action.  If you’ve ever wanted to see the difference between xpath and css or wondered what an architecture using page objects looks like, this is your chance.

Mozilla frequently holds test days for it’s different applications, and the automated tests for addons.mozilla.org are no exception.  Our next testday will be August 19.  These are an opportunity members to focus on writing some tests.  For the last one I ran a github workshop and am already thinking about what type of workshop I will hold for the next testday.

I consider this a testing ecosystem, because while I can add tests myself, the real win is having contributors learn something or teach the rest of the community something with their code.  The strength of the tests is gathered from the diversity of contributors.  With so many smart and generous people working and learning from each other through these tests, we will show what can be done with browser-based testing as well as shed some light on its challenges and limitations.

These are your tests and they help to ensure that the open web works for you.