A few good calls I have made on Test Automation and CT journey since 2005

Lessons I learned from 15 years of hands-on experience in Test Automation and Continuous Testing

The title might sound a brag, but I am old enough to know that it is pointless to brag in a blog article as not many people would read it (for the younger generation, except academic studies, not many people have the patience to read anything longer than 140 characters). Rather, I want to share my lessons with people who are passionate about software testing, and hope that they might get something out of my past experience.

Let’s face it, test automation and CT are two areas that people can easily make wrong choices. 95+% test automation attempts failed though many claimed ‘success’. To check whether test automation is really successful is incredibly easy: Is your team confident to deploy the new build (with changes) today? , or assess your project against AgileWay Continuous Testing Grading.

One reason that I have done OK with test automation is that I have made some right calls along the way.

I perform test automation efficiently, develop/maintain thousands of Selenium tests to enable 3 of my web apps release to production on a daily basis. On top of that, I developed TestWise IDE and award-winning BuildWise, and authored 12 books.

Some would say it is easier for you to say “I predicted it” now. But I do have the proofs such as my software and books. For example, I started to design TestWise IDE to support Watir in 2006. and TestWise v2 to support Selenium WebDriver in 2011. These can be counted a solid proof, I believe.

1. Watir vs HTMLUnit vs QTP (alike record playback)

Status: Verified. Watir is still alive. There are still buyers every once in a while for my “Watir Recipes” (1st edition in 2012).

Reasoning: Ruby is a good scripting language, perfect for test automation. I was willing to learn it, and I am grateful that I did.

Proof: The test script examples in my two books “Practical Web Test Automation” 1st edition and “Watir Recipes” were in Watir.

2. Selenium v1 (JS) vs Selenium WebDriver

Status: Verified

Base: I tried Selenium v1 (JavaScript), I did not like it (JavaScript and its limitation).