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Using Test Automation Frameworks As you embark on implementing or improving automation within your testing process, you'll want to avoid the "Just Do It" attitude some have taken. Perhaps you've heard the term "test automation framework" and wondered what it means, what it does for testing, and if you need one. Andrew Pollner, who has developed automated testing frameworks for more than fifteen years, outlines how frameworks have grown up around test automation tools. Regardless of which automation tool you use, the concepts of a framework are similar. Andrew answers many of your questions: Why build a framework? What benefit does it provide? What does it cost to build a framework? What ROI can I expect when using a framework? Explore the different approaches to framework development and identify problems to watch out for to ensure the approach you take will provide years of productivity.
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Andrew Pollner, ALP International Corp
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Achieving Meaningful Metrics from Your Test Automation Tools In addition to the efficiency improvements you expect from automated testing tools, you can-and should-expect them to provide valuable metrics to help manage your testing effort. By exploiting the programmability of automation tools, you can support the measurement and reporting aspects of your department. Learn how Jack Frank employs these tools with minimal effort to create test execution
status reports, coverage metrics, and other key management reports. Learn what measurement data your automation tool needs to log for later reporting. See examples of the operational reports his automation tools generate, including run/re-run/not run, pass/fail, percent complete, and percent of overall system tested. Take with you examples of senior management reports, including Jack's favorite, "My Bosses' Boss Test Status Report"-names will be changed to hide the guilty. Regardless of the
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Jack Frank, Mosaic Inc
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Lightweight .NET User Interface Testing The .NET environment provides a surprising but little known way to create user interface (UI) test automation scripts. By employing objects in the System.Threading and System.Reflection namespaces, test engineers can write ad hoc automated UI test scenarios in minutes. James McCaffrey presents an example of a Windows-based application and creates a test program written in C# that verifies UI functionality by simulating user typing and clicking. James explains the code in detail so you can modify and extend the program to meet your own needs. Learn how to write ad hoc UI test automation for .NET-based Windows applications.
- How to use System.Threading for test harness communications in .NET
- Simulate .NET user interactions with System.Reflection
- A look ahead to Avalon and its effect on user interface test automation
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James McCaffrey, Volt Information Sciences, Inc.
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Managing Agile Test Departments What is the impact of agile methods on test departments and testers? How do you manage testing in an agile test department? Robert Martin, an early adopter and proponent of agile development practices, discusses his experiences and recommendations for how to organize and run an agile test department. He describes the principles, practices, tools, and metrics that are important to successful test management within agile development. Agile methods change the role of test departments from verification to specification. With agile methods, you develop tests before the code, and the tests become the detailed requirements documentation. This paradigm shift has a profound impact on both the test team and the programming team. Learn about the test management problems that often arise in making the transition to agile development and common solutions that address these issues.
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Robert Martin, Object Mentor
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Getting Started with Test Driven Development Test-driven (or test first) development (TDD) is an excellent method for improving the quality of software applications. It forces the programmer to focus on ensuring that the behavior of the objects at the lowest level of the system is appropriate. It also provides a mechanism to ensure that future source code changes do not break existing behaviors. Using C++ as the example language, Robert Walsh presents an overview of test-driven development, available TDD testing frameworks, and a demonstration of a project started from scratch using TDD. You can apply these concepts to other languages, including Java and Visual Basic. Learn how to overcome the initial hurdles many developers experience when starting out with TDD.
- An introduction to test-driven development using C++ as the example language
- The testing frameworks available for TDD
- Programming tasks that are difficult to implement using TDD
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Robert Walsh, EnvisionWare, Inc.
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Thinking About People, Process, and Product: A Principle that Works at Work All projects involve the three P's: people, process, and product. People includes everyone who influences the project. Process is the steps taken to produce and maintain software. Product is the final outcome of the project. To keep these three in harmony, you must observe who is trying to do what to deliver what. Usually, two of the three P's are mandated, and the third one is chosen appropriately. Although this is common sense, it is not common practice. Dwayne Phillips discusses the issues and challenges that affect us all on every project. Learn about the ideas and questions to consider to help you work through these issues.
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Dwayne Phillips, U.S. Department of Defense
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