Originally posted on: http://geekswithblogs.net/tmurphy/archive/2013/06/27/build-2013-sessionndashtesting-your-c-base-windows-store-apps.aspx

Testing an application is not what most people consider fun and the number of situation that need to be tested seems to grow exponentially when building mobile apps.  That is why I found the topic of this session interesting.  When I found out that the speaker, Francis Cheung, was from the Patterns and Practices group I knew I was in the right place.  I have admired that team since I first met Ron Jacobs around 2001.  So what did Francis have to offer?

He started off in a rather confusing who’s on first fashion.  It seems that one of his tester was originally supposed to give the talk, but then it was decided that it would be better to have someone who does development present a testing topic.  This didn’t hinder the content of the talk in the least.  He broke the process down in a logical manner that would be straight forward to understand if not implement.

Francis hit the main areas we usually think of such as tombstoning, network connectivity and asynchronous code, but he approached them with tools they we may not have thought of until now.  He relied heavily on Fiddler to intercept and change the behavior of network requests.

Then there are the areas you might not normal think to check.  This includes localization, accessibility and updating client code to a new version.  These are important aspects of your app that can severely impact how customers feel about your app.  Take the time to view this session and get a new appreciation for testing and where it fits in your development lifecycle.