test automation

Better Software Magazine Articles

Bypassing the GUI

Graphical User Interfaces make test automation hard. The problems are well known. You need specialized tools to drive the GUI. Those tools can be confused by the common programming practice of inventing custom user interface controls. When they are used in the simplest way, the tools lead to fragile tests that tend to break en masse when the GUI changes. Making the test resistant to change requires elaborate and sometimes awkward testing frameworks. Learn how to use a scripting interface to get around the GUI problem.
Brian Marick
October 17, 2002
Mission Made Possible: Harnessing Tools and Procedures to Test a Complex, Distributed System

Automating unit, component, and integration testing can sometimes seem like an impossible mission. Read how one team of programmers combined the right tools and processes to make their test mission not just possible, but successful.
Greg Kubaczkowski Rex Black
August 1, 2002
Targeted Fault Insertion

Some programs must handle network errors, file system errors, and the like. Testing their error handling manually can be tedious and time consuming. Relying on accidental errors is unreliable and uncontrollable. Learn about a method for simulating errors that makes the process automated and flexible.
Paul Houlihan
July 30, 2002
A Look at a Test Data Generator

When Pat McGee couldn't find the right tool for the job, he and his team wrote one in Visual Basic for Applications for Microsoft Excel. They used Excel for all the data entry and calculations. Several groups in the project ended up using the tool–including testers, developers, and database administrators. Read how they did it.
Pat McGee
July 30, 2002
A Lesson in Scripting: Improve Your Testing with Programming Skills

You can write simple programs to help with your daily testing tasks using Perl or other scripting languages. Here's a primer on scripting languages and programming skills for testers.
Danny R. Faught's picture Danny R. Faught
July 30, 2002
A Look at the Ruby Scripting Language

The Ruby language has gained many followers recently. Ruby offers many of the same features that made Perl a popular scripting language, but also has the advantage of being a fully object-oriented language. While developing an object-oriented application in Perl might be a bit clumsy, Ruby supports object-oriented programming quite naturally. This can offer many advantages when developing a large testing application.
Phil Tomson
July 29, 2002
Generating Test Code with Teradyne TestMaster

Robin Sahner looks at generating test code with Teradyne TestMaster. His group evaluated TestMaster on two projects. It did what they hoped it would, and now they're using TestMaster on all of their projects. They're not employing it to shorten their test development time or use fewer people; instead they plan to use it to get a more complete, more easily maintained set of functional tests using the same resources. Editors Note: Teradyne SST has become a new company called Empirix.
Robin Sahner
June 30, 2002
Scripted Validation

David Bennett discusses how scripted validation helped revolutionize his organization's software development efforts. This article contains a sample script.
David M. Bennett
June 26, 2002
A Look at Network Testing with NIST Net

Gene Sally looks at network testing with NIST Net. He concludes that NIST Net is a powerful tool, allowing you to emulate network conditions seldom occurring in your lab but nonetheless prevalent in the real world. You can reproduce the conditions in which your application fails, easing diagnosis and repair.
Gene Sally
June 26, 2002
Automating Testing

Brian Marick gives a simplified history of test automation tools and provides a list of test automation links.
Brian Marick
June 26, 2002

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