Almost all the same benefits apply to almost any automation, whether it is vulnerability testing by security experts, integration testing by large enterprises, load testing by tier-1 carriers, or acceptance tests of outsourced development. I am not sure if this is useful for you, but if it is: Please give a thumbs-up and I will know that at least some people have troubles with automation.
Test Automation
Manual testing and test scripts are often painful to develop and use, but basically still are the de-facto in the industry. A manual test, or self-developed test scripts doesn't require that much investments in tools, only in time and people. But when time, and people are exactly what you do not have, then the natural move is towards test automation.
When you start looking at test automation products, you can easily get distracted by the technological features in the collateral and related white-papers. Model-based! TTCN! XML syntax notation! Dynamic message sequences! 100% test coverage! I want that!
The leap from manual tests or simple scripts into fully automated test suites makes all self-respecting test engineers just simply excited. It is difficult to see the limits to the things where test automation could be used. But hold on! Are you thinking straight? Why was it that you were looking for test automation in the first place?
To remind you, there are three main things why people look for test automation:
- cheaper test execution,
- less resources in development and maintenance, and
- better test coverage.
Cheaper, Faster, More... Through Automation
Most test automation tools can be categorized in two groups:
- Capture-playback tools
- Test modeling tools
A capture-playback tool lets you define your own test sequences, or if you look at it another way, it requires you to build the entire test setup just to produce a valid, conformant test sequence. It will then record that and let you re-run the test. Test automation people in this camp are known to say "If you need to do it more than twice, automate".
The challenge in this type of automation is that the tests are only as good as the capture you take to "seed" the tests. The test automation vendor takes no responsibility for the quality of tests. And you still need to build the "old fashion way" for the first test execution, and then the tool just automates the re-execution of the tests.
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Do something - a step in the right direction
The most important choice is to make a choice. Even if you decide to change your mind later on, make a start now.It's like all of the tools available to help with software development - some are great, some are useless, and most are in between. But having any tool is better than having no tool at all.
Once you have a tool and play with it for a while, you'll begin to see the benefits, and you'll have a better understanding for where you want to go next. You can't get this perspective just from evaluating and deliberating. You have to pick one and try it.
So jump in - tools are great, there are lots of them out there and the more you try the better you'll understand your own specific problem space.
Thanks for the article!
Mr. Hericus
www.ZedBuildsAndBugs.com