I wish people would think about the data they use for the tests a bit more, and how they can create it from scratch in a consistent and scalable way, that way they can always be testing against a clean environment with a known setup and avoid doing a bunch of bad things (like creating data on the fly as part of a test)
Can you get devs to care about what valid data looks like? Nigh impossible. Hell, I had a hard enough time keeping my testers authoring new test data in a reasonably spec compliant way. A proper data lifecycle is the key, but it will almost always be the least popular part of your process because most people just don't want to think about it.
At some point in your process someone has to know what they are doing. There is no machine that knows correct data for you. It's part of of what makes testing difficult. Everyone else can live in fantasy land, but you, as a tester, have to bring the hammer of reality crashing down. Won't make you many friends, but it is what it is. Your test data must reflect a reality. Someone has to do the footwork observe that reality. Only someone who has done so can then do the next step of authoring valid/representative test data.
ubergeek42•2mo ago
So I'm curious, how do you all manage the seeded test data that you need for your QA tests?