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Eric Taylor

Eric Taylor
Eric is a results-oriented IT leader, agile enthusiast, and technical expert with a proven track record in delivering large-scale web and mobile applications while focusing on quality, timelines and people leadership. He has over 19 years of experience in IT in medical, retail, banking and education industries. Eric is a Certified ScrumMaster (CSM), has a Bachelor’s degree in Management Information Systems from Bloomsburg University Pennsylvania, and a Masters in Information Science from Penn State University.
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Recent Posts

See How Agile Can Improve Everyday Operations

Jun 23, 2017 12:41:00 PM / by Eric Taylor posted in ops

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Ever since taking hold in 2001, Agile has done nothing but grow in popularity. This osmosis of the Agile methodology is due to the positive effect is has had on helping organizations of all scope and size become more flexible, react quicker, and improve the quality of their product or service.

By applying Agile to your business, the decisions you make and actions you take will all be focused on maximizing business value delivery. The areas where Agile can have the biggest impact are:

  • Software Delivery
  • Prioritization of Business Needs
  • Building Compliant Products
  • Organizing Product Releases
  • Organizing and Incentivizing Teams
  • Funding New Initiatives

 

Here are several more specific examples of how using Agile can improve your processes.

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Getting the most out of Cucumber, Gherkin and Selenium

Apr 27, 2017 3:29:00 PM / by Eric Taylor posted in Cucumber, Gherkin, Automated Testing, BDD, Testing, Selenium, ATDD, Modernized Technology

1 Comment

 

Cucumber, Selenium and Gherkin have become popular tools for helping teams implement test automation or what is often referred to as Acceptance Test Driver Development (ATDD) or Behavior Driven Development (BDD).  In this article we will cover some more advanced features of the Gherkin language that can help you write tests that are simpler and more reusable.

We will cover:

  1. Using Regular Expressions for Dynamic Data
  2. Scenario Outlines
  3. Tables as Arguments
  4. Backgrounds

In this article series we use Ruby as the implementation language (and we recommend Ruby when there is no other existing preference). However, these examples will translate easily to other languages like Java.

 

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Advanced Selenium: Multiple Browsers and Environments

Mar 28, 2017 2:11:05 AM / by Eric Taylor posted in Agile Testing, Ruby, Cucumber, Automated Testing, BDD, Testing, Selenium, ATDD, WebDriver, Browser, Modernized Technology

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Cucumber, Selenium and Gherkin have become popular tools for helping teams implement test automation - what is often referred to as Acceptance Test Driver Development (ATDD) or Behavior Driven Development (BDD).  In this article we will cover some more advanced features of Selenium and Cucumber and show how to environmentalize your test framework so you can run the same tests against different environments or browsers.  In this article series, we use Ruby as the implementation language (and we recommend Ruby when there is no other existing preference). However, these examples will translate easily to other languages like Java. 

If you are not familiar with Selenium, Cucumber and Gherkin take a look at our related introductory blog "The 5 Step Guide for Selenium, Cucumber, and Gherkin".

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The 5 Step Guide for Selenium, Cucumber, and Gherkin

Aug 22, 2016 8:00:00 AM / by Eric Taylor posted in Ruby, Cucumber, Gherkin, Automated Testing, BDD, Selenium, ATDD, Modernized Technology

28 Comments

Increasingly, IT development organizations are turning to automated testing techniques to improve the quality of their code and to save time and money. While this market remains fractured, Selenium, Cucumber, and Gherkin have become quite popular and are increasingly the frameworks of choice for user interface and integration test automation.

This guide is intended for someone who is not familiar with Selenium, Cucumber, Gherkin and would like to get started. We will go through the installation of the framework, describe how the technologies work together, and then write a few tests.

Through this guide you will install and use the following:

  • Ruby (2.3.3 or higher)
  • Selenium Webdriver (3.2.1) 
  • Cucumber (2.4.0)
  • Gherkin (4.1.1)
  • Text Editor or IDE (SublimeText, Atom, Notepad++, Eclipse)
  • Firefox 

Platforms Covered:

  • Mac OS X
  • Windows

NOTE: As of the latest update of this blog on March 21, 2017 we suggest you use Selenium Webdriver 3.2.1 and not a newer version since the newer versions of Selenium Webdriver are incompatible with Firefox.

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7 Signs Your Architecture Is Not Agile-Ready

Jul 19, 2016 7:58:14 AM / by Eric Taylor posted in Automated Testing, TDD, Unit Testing, ATDD, Architecture, Modernized Technology

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I have heard it asked many times, “Where do architects fit into Agile?” But that's the wrong question.  Instead, you should be asking, "Is our architecture Agile-Ready?"

One reason for adopting Agile is to enable “flow” to breakout – meaning your organization accelerates moving business needs from the concept phase to delivering customer value in production. Agile, grounded in Lean principals, asks your teams to look at everything that does not contribute to “flow” as waste and to eliminate it. But what if your application architecture is holding you back? 

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