Why “For those who think Test Automation is easy, saves time, converts manual tests, etc,”? page element

Me: Why did you add the new page element “For those who think Test Automation is easy, saves time, converts manual tests, etc,”? in your blog?

Me: I have been asked questions like

# I am planning to change my job, which tool shall I learn?
# Will only manual testing experience fetch me a job?
# Shall I learn some scripting language? Will it improve my chances of getting a job?
# What will I say if the interviewer asks “Haven’t you done any automation”?
# Why don’t you automate the program? I have previously seen a test group do that, they run the tests and next day morning they have the results?
# How hard is it to automate? All you have to record it right?
# Let’s build a test framework; it will surely reduce testing time?
# You should not be stuck with manual testing, you should start automating?

And many more, so I felt the papers by legendary test gurus could help us understand “Test Automation” better.

Second reason why I added the new page element would be

When I was answering to a discussion at Test republic, I quoted “During regression testing, if you currently run the same test cases over and over again, go ahead and automate, atleast it shall save time. But, during regression if you hunt for new bugs, note observations, verify the fix doesnot do something it was not supposed to do, then stick to manual (exploratory) testing. Iam sure this would be more challenging and will have better learning.”

Observe the first 2 lines - I made an assumption that automating repeated tests is easy; I also made an assumption that running automated tests will take less time.

Why did I make such an assumption? Well, in one of my previous projects we had written a script in python for build acceptance test. But then the script was not dynamic because we only intend to verify the program at a very high level, to qualify the build for testing.

So, I assumed the same would work here, well it might, but did I consider the other risks? No, did I evaluate the product before suggesting automation? No, did I have enough information before suggesting? No,

I feel this is exactly what is happening in most of the places. We feel we could automate some thing because it worked some where else. The papers listed gave me an insight on the pitfalls, traps I was not aware of, and I hope it helps other testers the same way.

Me: The papers you have posted have been available for public from a very long time (one of them 10 years back); so, how will it help if you post it on your blog?

Me: Good question, the second reason I have quoted happened last week, Pradeep forwarded me the links, which in turn helped me understand Test Automation better. I am trying to do the same.

Me: Well, all the best I hope more people read this learn and understand Test Automation

Me: Thanks:-), I hope more people read this, learn, think, understand Test Automation from legendary tester’s experiences, rather than blindly fall for advertisements.

Disclaimer: All the blogs shared by me are my ideas, my thought, my understanding of the subject and does not represent any of my employer’s ideas, thought, plans or strategies.

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

Exploratory testing, Session based testing, Scripted testing…concertedly

What do you do when you find a bug?

Regression Checks + Regression testing = Regression testing?!