STAREAST 2025 - Developer
Customize your STAREAST 2025 experience with sessions for software developers.
Sunday, April 27
Fundamentals of AI—ICAgile Certification (ICP-FAI)
Monday, April 28
Testing from the Inside: Unit Testing Edition
Do you want to take your testing and/or development skills to the next level? Are you working in an agile team where you are trying to shift-left so that your organization can reap the full benefits of testing earlier? In software testing, you're generally taught to think outside the box, from a user's perspective. However, sometimes great ideas can be sparked from inside the box, by looking at the underlying code and using that knowledge to identify various ways to break the software. Join Tariq King as he walks through the fundamentals of program-based testing so that you can find bugs...
Test Automation: How to Start and Succeed
Many organizations invest a lot of effort in test automation at the system level but then have serious problems as their product matures and changes over time. As a leader, how can you ensure that your new automation efforts will get off to a good start? What can you do to ensure that your automation work provides continuing added value? Chris Loder will explain the critical issues you need to know to get a good start, and he will share his extensive experience in building great automation. He covers the most important management issues you should address for test automation success,...
Test Smarter, Not Harder: How to Design Test Suites for Continuous Delivery
Imagine: as soon as any developed functionality is submitted into the code repository, it is automatically subjected to the appropriate battery of tests and then released straight into the wild. Setting up the pipeline to do just that has become commonplace, but most organizations hit the same stumbling block: just what IS the appropriate battery of tests? Automated build pipelines don't always lend themselves well to the traditional stages of testing. In this hands-on tutorial, Melissa will introduce testers to the key principles of test case and test suite design that apply to...
Towards Healthier Apps Through Observability
Observability has exploded onto the software engineering zeitgeist over the last five years, and for a good reason. However, it suffers from being misunderstood and sometimes equated with a closely related subject—monitoring. This confusion is compounded by the fact that some of the existing tools and frameworks just adopted a lot of the observability terminology in just the letter of the word, not the intent. Not having a solid grasp on the basics of observability is becoming unacceptable in the world of effective software quality engineering. Kaushal Dalvi shares his experiences in the...
Tuesday, April 29
A Quality Engineering Introduction to AI and Machine Learning
Although there are several controversies and misunderstandings surrounding AI and machine learning, one thing is apparent — people have quality concerns about the safety, reliability, and trustworthiness of these types of systems. Not only are ML-based systems shrouded in mystery due to their largely black-box nature, they also tend to be unpredictable since they can adapt and learn new things at runtime. Validating ML systems is challenging and requires a cross-section of knowledge, skills, and experience from areas such as mathematics, data science, software engineering, cyber-security,...
Wednesday, April 30
Heuristics to Help You Design, Build, and Choose Test Tools
How well do we design and acquire our tools? Drawing on compelling evidence gathered from a series of interviews, workshops, surveys, and case studies with industry gurus and hands-on practitioners, we’re diving deep into a set of heuristics. Each one is a gateway to discovery, backed by explanations and enriched with engaging exploratory activities based on solid research. As an attendee, you will gain access to resources that can help enable critical thinking and reflection about tools and the problems they solve. We will see how sometimes heuristics can pinpoint when a tool might...
SQL Server Indexing Strategies Using Query Store for Improved Performance in Retrieving Data
In the realm of database management, optimizing query performance is crucial, especially for SQL Server environments dealing with large datasets. The challenge lies in identifying and implementing effective indexing strategies that can significantly enhance data retrieval performance. During her talk, Navya will address the common issues of slow query performance and inefficient indexing, often exacerbated by the complexity of modern data systems and the dynamic nature of query patterns. To tackle this problem, she leveraged SQL Server's Query Store feature, which provides a powerful tool...
Thursday, May 1
Navigating the Intersection of Security Testing and Secured App Testing
In today's rapidly evolving digital landscape, ensuring the security of applications has become paramount. However, the traditional manual approaches to security testing and functional testing of apps once they have been secured is time-consuming, error-prone, and often fails to keep pace with emerging threats. This session will explore the challenges and opportunities at the intersection of automating security testing and testing secured applications. Karen will delve into a real-world case study where her team faced the daunting task of securing a complex application. By using multiple...