My Crafting Project Became Critical Infrastructure

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About the Talk

My Crafting Project Became Critical Infrastructure

Driven to madness by the normal workflow for testing my application, I wrote a small Python script in a couple of days. It called some APIs to build the app and deploy it to a hosted environment. It ran in my terminal, printing output often enough that I wouldn't get distracted. It solved my immediate problem.

But that wasn't the only problem it solved. It replaced a manual piece of our release process with an automated step, allowing my team to automate our pipeline. Then other teams copied us. Soon, a dozen teams in three units were trying to add and request features so that my personal pet project could become part of their merge request and release pipelines too. As more ideas needed to urgently serve the needs of teams in release time crunches, I merged code I didn't agree with in to keep everyone unblocked. The code base became something I dreaded, and I stopped maintaining it.

The next time a merge request came in, I was able to pay it the time and attention it deserved. I worked with the code submitter to improve usability. Another dev forked the code to build a UI component, serving a completely different purpose. Seeing how many individuals and teams used this code reignited my interest in maintaining it. I wrote tests for the repository, allowing me to finally refactor away the changes I'd dreaded. And the next contributor to the code base added a test without being asked. I no longer dread my little Python script. I support and maintain a critical piece of infrastructure, and I'm excited to do it.

Key Takeaways

• Good collaboration takes time and energy.
• Small things for one use can grow into bigger things with many uses.
• Pick up the work for the skills you want to build.

About the Speaker

Elizabeth is Quality Lead at Mendix in The Netherlands. She discovers and fills in the gaps in exploratory testing by coordinating an ensemble (mob) testing practice, actively listening, and setting out to prove that when “it should just work” it actually does. She's the go-to person for thinking critically about what’s being built, creating a common understanding, supporting colleagues outside the prescribed management structure, and writing API tests and English effectively.

She injects what she learns from books, conferences, and meetups into her daily work, spreading her knowledge through the workshops and Agile guild she facilitates. She's appreciated as an exploratory tester with an “extraordinary power of observation and categorization.” Her goal is to build enough skills in individuals and teams to make herself redundant. She’s currently serving as a co-organizer for the Friends of Good Software Conference (FroGS Conf) and program committee member for Agile Testing Days. You can find Elizabeth's big thoughts on this blog and little thoughts on Mastodon and Twitter.

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