API Testing Workshop

Description

One of the test principles is the Pesticide Paradox: "Every method you use to prevent or find bugs leaves a residue of subtler bugs against which those methods are ineffectual" - Boris Beizer. Your testing strategy must account for a wide distribution of potential bugs to prevent them from going to production. Even if you are a great tester, you can improve your approach by using multiple angles, including API testing.

The API acts as the "plumbing" for a system. For web applications, developers use a web API to communicate between the client and server. This API is often regular text that follows a known pattern understood by both sides.

Accessing this layer allows us to test differently. In the UI, certain invalid inputs are prevented, but the API may allow any possible ordering of text, opening up many opportunities to find defects.

Testing at the API level is valuable because it enables data-driven testing and can be faster and more robust than UI-only testing. It can also be used to test security, such as whether the server implicitly trusts what the client sends. Finally, it is an excellent way to confirm that invalid information receives helpful responses. A large portion of development work is debugging and maintenance, and APIs that return useful messages go a long way toward that goal.

Join us for this workshop-style class where we examine and practice the benefits of API testing using commercial and open-source software. Students leave with a stronger appreciation of API testing and practical ways to apply it in their work.