Independent Global Study of Developers and Testing Professionals Reveals Increasing Adoption of Agile, DevOps
March 5, 2018
The fourth annual “State of Testing” report is designed to better understand current trends related to delivering high-quality web and mobile applications. Findings highlight the vast complexity of software and its testing requirements, as testers now need to consider multiple platforms, devices, browsers, version of operating systems and more. To help developers and testers meet increasing end-user demands, Sauce Labs also announced today its Continuous Testing Cloud to enable users to more effectively deliver high-quality applications faster.
Testing early and often is a core tenet of continuous testing, but it must be coupled with the ability to find and fix bugs quickly to keep pace with the modern software development cycle. Survey data shows that bugs aren’t being fixed faster, with only 21 percent of respondents reporting they fix bugs immediately, down from 23 percent in 2017. These findings signal that despite the widespread adoption of agile and DevOps and the commitment to automated testing, debugging code quickly remains a barrier to reaping the full benefits of agile and DevOps.
“As the leader in continuous testing, we frequently survey the market on modern testing practices to ensure we’re supporting our customers in their journey to achieve continuous integration or continuous delivery,” said Charles Ramsey, CEO of Sauce Labs. “It’s clear from this year’s results that our customers not only need a fast and reliable cloud to execute their automated tests, they also need tools to help them debug faster.”
Additional key findings from the report include:
The value of automated testing is clear
- 45 percent of respondents expect to increase spending on test automation in 2018; 55 percent at large companies
- 56 percent do as much or more automated as manual testing, a minor decrease from 59 percent (2017) and 60 percent (2016).
Testing is conducted on more browser types, and increasingly on only the most recent versions
- 90 percent test on more than one browser, up from 88 percent in 2017
- 39 percent test on five or more types of browsers, up from 29 percent in 2017
- 5 percent test on Google Chrome only
- 53 percent test on only the most recent browser version, up from 34 percent in 2016
A mix of real devices and simulators becomes the norm for mobile testing
- 77 percent use a mix of both real devices and simulators or emulators for mobile testing, up from 34 percent in 2015
“Software development and testing is continuing to change significantly to solve the complexity and challenges of modern applications,” said Diane Hagglund, principal researcher at Dimensional Research. “Teams are adapting to move faster, and a rising adoption of DevOps and a commitment to automated testing reflects how modern methodologies are becoming more and more critical to successful application development.”
“The promise of testing early and often with automation is that you’re able to find and fix bugs faster, saving your company significant time and money,” said Lubos Parobek, VP of Product at Sauce Labs. “Sauce Labs is committed to helping customers not only find bugs, but fix them faster with new extended debugging features, as well as advanced analytics.”
To download the full “Testing Trends in 2018” report, visit: https://saucelabs.com/resources/white-papers/testing-trends-for-2018