How to automate everything - part 3

The world is changing faster than ever!  When I started learning how to code things were changing fast... now it's changing at warp speed!  Things I have told you as a fact in the past, I am now seeing changing.  You have to stay up to date or else get swept down the tech stream.  I always keep my eye on emerging technologies, but the most important source I keep my finger on is tech job apps.

When they change, I change.  If your goal is to stay employed you need to stay fresh with your tech skills.  In my opinion there has never been a better time to get into QA than right now, this article backs me up as well:

https://www.jibe.com/ddr/the-top-5-skills-and-occupations-in-demand-right-now/


I found this article very interesting for anyone wanting to get into QA:

https://www.qualitestgroup.com/blog/future-of-software-testing/the-qa-job-market-is-a-killer-would-you-stand-a-chance/

One thing that is awesome about the QA field is that it is changing over to to automation at a rapid rate!  What does that mean to you?  If you are just out of a coding bootcamp and find the junior dev field crowed by a lot of other coding bootcamp students, than think about the QA field.

Test automation is at least 50% writing code, 50% manual testing.  One of the best ways to learn more about testing and automation is to start listening to "test talks", I listen to them on the way to work everyday:

test talks podcast

What if you are a manual tester who can't write a single line of code ( many of QAs are in this boat )?I suggest you start writing automation, - doesn't matter what you automate,it  doesn't matter how crappy the code, just start writing!  Push all of your code up to Github so you can start building a little portfolio for potential employers to see.

As an example do what I did, while watching some Netflix in the evening with my wife, I wrote a basic script to automate the process of earning points youlikehits.com site.  I don't need the script, don't really care about the script.  The point is to practice writing code and slowly improving your automation skills over time.  Check out my script...laugh... cry, write better code than I did and send me a pull request :-)

you_like_hits_auto_points_collector

I am learning to write my scripts more organically as of late.  I start writing the basics of what I want to the script to do, I start refactoring as the script starts to annoy me and starts getting painful to work with.

Instead of sitting and staring at a blank text editor and trying to write perfect code from the start, simply start writing and pay close attention to the "pay points".  NOTE: this is not good advice if you are a full blown developer.  I am speaking about people who are new to writing code.  When I follow my own advice I find myself feeling more free to actually just start and enjoy the process of writing code.

Isn't that the whole point?  I mean if you hate writing code and stress out every second you are working, why do it?  Let me know what you think of my script :-)  Next up,  I might try and write a script to automate a job on Fiverr!  Give me some ideas, tell me something that is painful for you.
joshuakemp85@gmail.com