gsubash
Member
Reged: 08/02/04
Posts: 17
Loc: Chennai
|
|
Can u please tell when we have to decide to switch over to Automation for a particular application. what are the valid reason behind that.
|
quickhands06
Member
Reged: 02/04/04
Posts: 312
|
|
Automation benefits are the greatest when the application under test is fairly stable and mature. You will have much less re-work and stress in your life.
Artifacts from early phases like detailed requirements and manual test cases should be completed and provided to the automation team. IMO, not all the test cases should be automated, but a review should be done to find the best candidates for scripting.
|
neill_mccarthy
Active Member
Reged: 09/30/04
Posts: 946
Loc: London, UK
|
|
or alernately...
in agile we look to and do automate from day one. These tests are mainly at the unit level and can be executed continually after the production of each new code artifiact through the continous integration process.
In more traditional lifecycles as stated above rule of thumb is when it is mostly stable, however this may be too late to gain the benefits of automation and the return on investment expected of these tools and this process.
I agree with quickhands06's view that it may be better to automate the most appropriate scripts and you will need to define your own ideas for this as it changes across projects and companies.
So rule of thumb is when it makes sense, where the tests are automatable and where the benefit of automation can be realised in the lifecycle of the project.
|
quickhands06
Member
Reged: 02/04/04
Posts: 312
|
|
Neill, I believe I've read a few of your posts where you spoke of automating from day 1. I think there are lots of benefits in that approach but haven't seen it up close yet.
I was curious if in your experience the unit testing automation was done by development rather than the functional test group? The reason I ask is at the earliest stages of the lifecycle, it would seem to me that QA is reviewing and analyzing the requirements, setting up the test strategy and project, agreeing on test case methodology and beginning test case creation. Would Unit Automation testing be another task then added at this point?
Thanks,
|
neill_mccarthy
Active Member
Reged: 09/30/04
Posts: 946
Loc: London, UK
|
|
Anderson,
we work in pairs so the answer it is done by both depending on the level of agility or how close to XP we are running as a project.
The test team assist with providing the concepts for the testing and if they are a good enough coder will control the keyboard, if not we have the developers control the keyboard and the tester assist with the active review and supply of ideas of how we will exercise the story.
Now the point I find interesting in your post is the not quite agile yet position you are in. The areas of activity you mention are not always going on at that point in most agile projects and these are much more a group activity as we progress we build them up, your description fits the waterfall approaches and there these approaches may not be appropriate.
However, in more agile projects, we would be doing the test case creation as these are test cases we will later build on and possibly refactor and optimise for our "chain" stories in the system test phase. We are also at the moment experimenting with some more performance based "stories" and tests within XP to run at the end of each integration.
I am currently working on some heuristics for what elements will work at different levels of agility in the lifecycle for testing and at the moment it is looking to be the basis for my next submission to SQE for StarEast 2005, its either that or some ideas I am working on for Model Driven Testing.
Lisa Crispin with Tip House has an excellent book on the subject of testing in XP, which is a large factor in some of my thinking, and Brian Marick has some interesting papers on these ideas too at his site google Brian Marick and Agile testing.
Private mail me and I am happy to share information on the subject.
|
raghum
Member
Reged: 03/01/04
Posts: 30
Loc: Gurgaon
|
|
Hi
Go for this link its providing some PDF Files
First one is the some Mythes and facts on Automation.
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/OurFriends123/links/Testing_001097582196/BenchMarks_001101884103/
RRR
|
cyblue
Member
Reged: 03/20/03
Posts: 1048
Loc: Austin, TX, USA
|
|
There is also a lot of information in the FAQ at the top of this forum that references to a few select topics that apply to your question. Posting whatever related questions you have to those existing topics would be a great idea since this would benefit future users by having the information in the FAQ.
|
Previous
Search Results
Next
Threaded
Edit
Reply
Quote
