Thursday 14 August 2008 - What's with the test tools simplification? Where's it stop? |
Posted this on the softwaretestingclub.com forum, thought I make as well make it a blog entry too:
What's with the test tools simplification? Where's it stop? All the tools or posts about tools seem to be doing their best to simplify to the point that everything is point and click and record and playback. Is that actually going to simplify things?
These are some points from the marketing spiel for Original Software's automation tool; TestDrive Gold:
Easily create test scenarios through a simple point-and-click interface.
Execute a complete regression test in hours not days, complete with full results, automatic data rules, and analysis.
Free of any coding language: there is no complex scripting language to learn.
Self-healing scripts - run your existing scripts over revised or updated versions of your application without hours of re-scripting.
Complex decision-linked tests can be built that integrate with the server functions to give a complete approach to testing.
OriginalSoftware has taken the simplification to the point that you can't actually view the script (another thing! Is it still a 'script' if it's all graphical?).
There is a post on linkedin (http://www.linkedin.com/answers/technology/software-development/TCH...) about creating a test engine and again:
Testers should not need to know a programming language
I think this is a bad thing, IMHO testers should be aiming at knowing a language, not necessarily to the point of being able to code complicated systems but at least to be able to read sections of code and gain an understanding.
BTW I write as someone who does not know a language (but will one day).
I'm not sure but I think that's half a discussion post, half a rant! :-)
Any views or opinions expressed in this blog are those of the author only. |
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Thursday 14 August 2008 - so what |
| Posted by Ido Schacham |
Like you said - you aspire to learn a language even though you don't currently know how to program. That's the de facto situation with most testers today - they don't know a programming language right now.
That company is targeting these kind of testers and it sounds good to me. If they do a good job and you can write powerful tests without having to mess with a line of code, then why not? As someone who knows how to program that saves a lot of unnecessary hassle.
Even if this is the perfect automation, you could learn a programming language on the side for other needs, like building your own tools or just for the sake of knowing one, it doesn't have to do with that. Plus, if you don't like the oversimplification, go grind your teeth and write testing automation in C :) |
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Friday 15 August 2008 - I know a few |
| Posted by michaeljf |
I've spent enough time debugging Java, ASP, SQL and C coded programs to be able to follow through them and be able to understand what is going on. I have written test scripts in Perl, Python and even in LoadRunner's scripting language. I utilize PHP and MySQL on my home web site and have occasionally gone through and done exercises in Java and C programming books, I even took a basic C++ class.
Am I a developer? Nope. I don't aspire to be either, nor do I believe we need to know languages, as you said, enough to write complicated systems. I don't need to know the best way to generate memory friendly C programs, but I so want to know enough to be able to run a debugger or a dump analyzer so I can enter those details in my bug reports. I'm a tester who knows how to do some coding and read code, and that's what I want to be. |
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