GTAC 2013: Breaking the Matrix - Android Testing at Scale

Thomas Knych, Stefan Ramsauer, & Valera Zakharov, Google

Are you ready to take the red pill?
Mobile has changed the way humans interact with computers. This is great, but as engineers we're faced with an ever growing matrix of environments our code runs on. The days of considering only a handful of browsers and screen resolutions are not coming back. How can engineers cope with the Matrix? We'll cover how Google is fighting this testing problem on workstations, in the cloud and in your head...
"I'm trying to free your mind, Neo. But I can only show you the door. You're the one that has to walk through it."

[astromkarl]

Yeah that's very nice and all except that I can't create Intel AVDs using Google API's. I also cannot run intel haxm stuff on Mavericks. I've come to prefer running the extremely slow version of the emulator than trying to get haxm/snapshots working after a quite exhausting number of kernel panics. All in all it would be nice if google actually tried to make the testing set ups work and be well documented rather than trying to tell us we're stupid for not using their magic tricks. And yes, you're right. Most of the bugs isn't in hardware specific stuff. It's not even in android-dependent stuff. So why do I have to go to third party solutions like robolectric just to be able to run efficient unit-tests? Because android/google decided to force us to run tests on devices (virtual or real) which makes tests take minutes rather than seconds even on fast computers. Dear google reps, stop insulting us.

[rcgonzalezf]

Great, do you guys use something like an specific CI server to manage all those tests, changes and all that stuff?

[TomsDone]

Espresso sounds good, but this presentation is slow to get to the point and not particularly info dense.  Maybe better to just look at the slides or read an article.

[NavalKishoreBarthwal]

I would say it'a fun introduction video.. not much for developer how to make use of espresso...!!

[bohan]

how i can get your device lab and the accelerated emulator? maybe that is the important than the test framework? is this open source?

[indraneelganguli]

The x86 emulators don't support google play services and maps and only arm ones do and arm ones are pathetically slow . Since the presentation showed x86 emulators which are fast, how do you handle this issue