New Service Offering - Automated Testing

Boombatower Development is adding automated testing as a new service. Boombatower Test Services (BTS) will provide a manageable solution that requires minimal setup.

One of the most exciting features included in Drupal 7 is the testing framework and the large number of tests that come with it. The testing framework has introduced a new development paradigm into core development that has opened up a number of exciting possibilities in addition to maintaining a very stable development version of Drupal core. As respected core developer Károly "chx" Négyesi said:

"Drupal 7 HEAD is much more stable than any release we [have] ever had."

The increased stability has allowed for the Drupal 7 development time to be extended and the related code freeze to be shortened. Drupal shops can benefit from the same principle. By having extensive tests in place companies can maintain a higher level of confidence in their products and extend that confidence to their clients.

BTS will use the second generation framework soon to be in place on drupal.org and testing.drupal.org. The framework has proven to be robust and the latest version will provide a number of powerful new features.

In addition to you writing functional tests for your custom modules like those included in Drupal 7 core, Boombatower will be providing a solution that allows for testing with a copy of live data to ensure that code changes do not cause issues with a fully configured site setup. Having both types of tests in place that are automatically run on all patches, commits, or nightly builds will give Drupal shops more confidence when deploying new features or code changes to a live site.

In addition to providing automated testing we also offer consulting services for evaluating tests. Properly written tests will ensure that the results received from automated testing are as useful as possible.

I will be speaking at Drupalcon DC 2009 about the history of the automated testing framework, its present form and the exciting new future. I will stick around afterwards to discuss the session and the launch of our automated testing service. If you are interested please stop by after the session.