Results of our first “Ask an Expert” automation session

It’s was clearly a wow! The way how our first “Ask an Expert” session went was promising. I haven’t thought that we would be able to fill a complete hour with discussions right away – but finally we ended up with additional 15 minutes to get the next steps set for Mike Kaply’s last question how to run automated tests for autoconf.

So what is that amazing on such a session? Given that in the past we as team were mostly working on Bugzilla to get a plan how to solve a specific problem, a live discussion is indeed a lot more helpful. Every attendee can directly participate, ask if there are unclear steps or if there are better ways to accomplish the wanted goal. The discussion is ongoing until you really met your expectation, or the time is up. That’s the difference to threaded conversations via email, where you should expect delays in the turnaround. You will lose valuable time which is even harder when you already have a strong timeline to finish up a feature.

The Automation Development team strongly believes that we all can work together to improve the Test Automation area at Mozilla even more. To achieve that goal we will continue in having live discussions each week and to help others in increasing their skills in automation.

And as a hint for all MozCamp attendees: If you are around keep an eye out for our “Make Sure Your Code Works” hacking session on Saturday at 3:05pm. I will post details about it before MozCamp but just as a heads-up so you can mark it in your calendar.