A year ago, MageTestFest was organized. Now, MageTestFest is going to happen again in March 2019 in Florence, Italy. But is it going to be the same event as the first edition? What is needed to make it better? What has changed in the ecosystem that cries for attention during this nerd conference? Here are my thoughts.
March 2019 in Florence
It is now only 2 months away: MageTestFest will take place from March 5th to 8th in Florence (aka: Firenze), Italy. And most things are in place: The Odeon Theatre has been booked for the main conference. The conference day will be preceded by two days of workshops and followed up by a hackathon. We have summed up a couple of things on the Location page at the website and are currently working hard on the program and speakers bit.
However, we can already state a couple of things on the program, simply because MageTestFest focuses on what is important to developers, with regards to testing:
Magento Functional Testing Framework
The Magento Functional Testing Framework will play a more prominent role at MageTestFest. It was released little bit over a year ago and since then has made its way into the Magento core, offering functional tests for the core modules. However, the real power of MFTF lies in its extensibility. One test is able to extend another tests. And through these tests, the risk of extensions breaking the system is reduced.
Marketplace & ExtDN presence
The value of the MFTF is seen especially by the Magento Marketplace, which hosts thousands of third-party extensions, not all of which are of the highest quality. To guarantee multiple extensions work together, Magento Marketplace is working on incorporating MFTF tests into their admission process. And this again requires third-party extension developers to write MFTF tests for their own extensions.
The ExtDN network and the Magento Marketplace team will be present at MageTestFest and will play a role in the event's program.
Frontend testing
Not to be missed, new frontend techniques are popping up and require testing tools as well. You can expect the MageTestFest program to include talks on React and Vue testing, as well as end-to-end functional testing tools.
All in all, MageTestFest 2 will be different from the first version, simply because the developer community has progressed in a year time as well. It will be worth it visiting this great event. And don't forget to spend the weekend in Florence as well: After days of studying on testing, a walk around this beautiful town is well-deserved.
Stay tuned for more news on the speakers, the program and the workshops.
About the author
Jisse Reitsma is the founder of Yireo, extension developer, developer trainer and 3x Magento Master. His passion is for technology and open source. And he loves talking as well.
