Posted by Albert Gareev on Aug 06, 2012
Some time ago I had a hard time discussing performance problem with application developer. My challenge was to overcome a “block” set by the developer: “this is a one-page code, it’s a very simple logic, and I see no reasons to spend time evaluating its performance”. I didn’t have more than 5-7 minutes for the […] ...
Posted by Albert Gareev on May 24, 2010
Test Automation Problems series in my blog has received its own page. I also added Recommended Reading section to provide a few links to external resources. Don’t miss the latest article by Linda Wilkinson. ...
Posted by Albert Gareev on Sep 15, 2009
Parent page: Test Automation Problems Support and Feedback Business logic investigation, test case design, and test script programming are distinct activities. A professional automation engineer is capable of carrying out the all three, however the overall progress will slowdown. Since test automation project often starts when automated testing results are already needed there is no […] ...
Posted by Albert Gareev on Sep 14, 2009
Parent page: Test Automation Problems Requirements Trying to do something without understanding what you are supposed to get often produces unexpected results. With regards to computer software the expectations must be even more precise and specific, as all the functionalities are built from atomic instructions executed by a machine. Test Automation, as a software development […] ...
Posted by Albert Gareev on Aug 13, 2009
Parent page: Test Automation Problems Robustness Automated Testing is about delivering test results – on time, within the Test Phase and reliable enough, with no manual retesting. There is no or minimal time reserved for scripts fixing, debugging and rerunning during the Test Cycle. If Automated Testing didn’t work then QA resources have to perform […] ...
Posted by Albert Gareev on Aug 12, 2009
Parent page: Test Automation Problems Verification Manual verification is complicated and informal. For test automation purposes, making it logical and specific requires time and effort of a seasoned professional. Workarounds like “picture-based” verification do not require formal logic but do not save man hours at the end due to high maintenance cost and manual validation […] ...
Posted by Albert Gareev on Aug 11, 2009
Parent page: Test Automation Problems Coverage How thoroughly script goes through the test case flow and how many test cases are automated per test plan? Points of consideration 1) Scattered vs. in-depth functionality coverage Each functionality module of the application requires initial effort spent on GUI mapping and common functions development. However, this effort is […] ...
Posted by Albert Gareev on Aug 10, 2009
Parent page: Test Automation Problems Framework There are 3 most popular approaches in implementation of Test Automation, and none of them isn’t ideally suitable for any environment. Approach and problems 1) Linear scripts A single test case could be automated fairly quickly (especially using recording) but robustness without error-handling is very questionable GUI mapping is […] ...
Posted by Albert Gareev on Jul 29, 2009
Parent page: Test Automation Problems Resource Conversion When starting up in-house Test Automation, companies often look for internal resources. While the benefits are obvious, there are some snags on this path. Problems and impact 1) Converting manual testing QA resources to test automation Strong programming skills and technical mindset are mandatory requirements, and must be considered […] ...
Posted by Albert Gareev on Jul 24, 2009
General Recommendation Object-Oriented GUI Recognition method should be used whenever possible. If an object is completely supported by testing tool then wrapping functions (provided by the testing tool) should be used to interact with the object. If an object is partially supported by testing tool then object’s native methods and properties should be used when […] ...
Posted by Albert Gareev on Jul 08, 2009
Parent page: Test Automation Problems Software Technical problems related to Test Automation Tools, and platform-product-tool compatibilities. Problems Test Automation Tool does not support Product’s platform (operating system) completely or partially Test Automation Tool does not support Product’s GUI (for Functional/Regression Test Automation) completely or partially (this may include total absence of support for the particular […] ...
Posted by Albert Gareev on Jul 01, 2009
Parent page: Test Automation Problems “Heavyweight” planning Traditional “Waterfall” type approach: planning of automation development activities months and months ahead, creating project phases, extensive documentation, trying to predict future coverage. Problems and impact Long-term budgeting and resource allocation planning is barely possible for automation projects as it is a secondary deliverable vs. the main software […] ...
Posted by Albert Gareev on Dec 10, 2008
A company hired another “automated tester”… Process description In the nutshell, the actual job description is: Bring up an application-under-test Start “testing” script Babysit “testing” script, i.e. manually click/type on the GUI when the script is stuck, then resume script After execution is done, review “test logs” Reviewing the “test logs” includes: Go through […] ...
Posted by Albert Gareev on Jan 22, 2007
…On hard-coding of test data, continued Parameterization is a structured programming approach Starting with example. Such a function is useless when you need to sum numbers different than 2 and 3. Now let’s apply mapping. It is a little bit better, but we still have to change the source code and restart the script, if […] ...
Posted by Albert Gareev on Jan 20, 2007
Hard-coding – storing data within the code A printed document is called “hard copy”, while its electronic version is “soft”. We can easily apply a change on a soft copy. And yet the code, compiled and assembled into an application, while stored electronically, is a “hard” copy too. Applying changes to it is almost an […] ...
