For our January 12th meetup we are going back to our favorite subject: testing! OK, maybe not favorite, but important nevertheless, and when we add the words automated and easy into the mix, this may even be a fun topic after all :-) If you don't believe me, ask the folks from Genius.com who would've not gone agile without it.

So, Chris Bedford, who does build/test automation for living, has generously offered to show us how to use Selenium and Maven/Ant for Browser-Based Automated Testing of Web Applications.

Chris will demonstrate:

• How to write functional tests with Selenium
  
• How to set up Selenium testing for web apps in continuous integration using Maven and Ant
  
• How to use Hudson for build server (brief overview)
  

He will talk about:

• Different Ways To Test a Web App: Unit vs. Functional
  
• Selenium: Demo of Selenium IDE, Architecture, Alternatives (Canoo WebTest)
  
• Automating Testing Using Selenium: Maven, Cargo, Viewing Test Results
  

... and depending on the time and your interest, Chris even has a hands-on lab created for us so that we too can get our hands dirty. To participate, please pre-download the demo files (as there will be limited WiFi connectivity) and take a look at Chris' instructions so that you get your environment set up.

Note, this meeting is taking place at our new venue sponsor: SUPINFO of San Francisco at 2738 Hyde St (between Beach and North Point Streets, near Cable Car Turntable). Big thanks goes out to Joel Marty for putting me in touch with Lisa Tenor, who will be our host at SUPINFO!

Pizzas for this event will be sponsored by Diana Henninger from TEKsystems and refreshments will be brought in by Gerry Cohen from Guidewire Software!

Be sure to stick around until the end to get a shot at winning books and other interesting goodies from Sun, O'Reilly, Packt Pub, as well as a copy of IntelliJ IDEA from JetBrains.

About Chris Bedford:
Chris has worked on a broad spectrum of award-winning products, in areas ranging from enterprise software and Eclipse tooling, to mobile applications. In both individual contributor roles (most recently as a Principal Engineer at Rearden Commerce, and Staff Engineer at Siebel Systems), and as a development manager, he has always been interested in automating software processes to improve quality and team efficiency.
In 2008, Chris founded Build Lackey Labs, with the goal of helping Java development teams define and implement strategies for build/test automation, release engineering, test-first development, and leveraging the Groovy language.
This year Chris's main focus has been on build automation and Groovy/Grails web development projects at CA-ISO, the company that manages California's energy grid. Chris and his partner at the Labs, Mike Jackson, also helped automate the build, test, and release process for Barnes & Noble's new Android-based e-Reader.
Chris obtained his B.S. in Computer Science from Yale University and holds a Certificate with Distinction in Business Administration from UC Berkeley Extension. He blogs regularly at http://blog.buildlack....

As usual, this event is brought to you by Marakana, which also happens to offer Selenium training :-)