Hikaku

“Test frequently and early.” If you’ve been following my testing agenda, you’re probably sick of hearing me repeat that. However, it is making sense that if your tests detect an issue soon after it occurs, it will be easier to resolve. This is one of the guiding concepts that makes continuous integration such an effective method. I’ve encountered several teams who have a lot of automated tests but don’t use them as part of a continuous integration approach. There are frequently various reasons why the team believes these tests cannot be used with continuous integration. Perhaps the tests take too long to run, or they are not dependable enough to provide correct results on their own, necessitating human interpretation.

Most test automation tools just do test execution automation. Without test design involved in the whole test automation process, the test cases remain ad hoc and detect only simple bugs. This solution is just automation without real testing. In addition, test execution automation is very inefficient.

When working on web automation with Selenium, I encountered scenarios where I needed to refresh pages from time to time. When does this happen? One scenario is that I needed to refresh the page to check that the data I expected to see was still available even after refreshing. Another possibility is to clear form data without going through each input individually.

In my last blog, I investigated both the stateless and the stateful class of model-based testing. Both have some advantages and disadvantages. You can use them for different types of systems, depending on whether a stateful solution is required or a stateless one is enough. However, a better solution is to use an aggregate technique that is appropriate for each system. Currently, the only aggregate solution is action-state testing, introduced in the book Paradigm Shift in Software Testing. This method is implemented in Harmony.