Last week PushToTest hosted the first of a new series of 2-Day Hands-On seminars on Test Automation. The event sold out and the room was packed with eager students. Some traveled from Michigan to the seminar in Silicon Valley, California.

Here are some of my notes from the seminar:

1) The students at the seminar were from a rich cross section of backgrounds and experiences. We had software architects, software developers, QA testers, database administrators, and project managers. This shows me that test automation is a multi-discipline effort. It is not enough anymore to throw testing over the wall to a bunch of testers and not worry about the results.

2) TestMaker is in better shape that I had thought. In the days that lead up to the seminar I was concerned that the usability in TestMaker would make the hands-on portions difficult to follow. I was happy to none of the students ran into any roadblocks that kept them from completed the workbook of tasks. (This is not to say that we can put off usability improvements in TestMaker. Usability is a big issue in my eyes.)

3) The students universally told me they are not finding commercial test automation tools that are appropriate for Web application, Service Oriented Architecture (SOA,) Ajax, Web service, and Web 2.0 testing. As a result they often have one tool for Web application testing and another tool for Ajax testing.

4) Many students liked the informal style of the presentations. They were looking to gain an understanding of testing in the 21st century and take home tactics and methodology they will use in their own environment.

5) Several of the students are working in SOA environments and were interested to learn about TestMaker integration with registry/repository products. See here for details

The next seminar events are in London, New York, and then back in Silicon Valley. For details check http://www.pushtotest.com/Docs/training/seminarform.

-Frank