Fake End-to-End Test Automation Clarified

After knowing what is not real, motivated professionals can learn and achieve the real.

This article is included in the “IT Terminology Clarified” and “Be aware of Fake Test Automation/DevOps Engineers” series.

This article’s focus is automated end-to-end testing via UI, i.e, testing the entire system as a user would.

Pyramid Image Credit: “Continuous Integration at Facebook” presentation

For simplicity, I will use Web Test Automation, the most popular type, as the example in this article.

Table of Contents:
· Most Automated Testers are Incompetent or Fake
· What is it like for a software project with real test automation implemented?
· Software Testing Attributes
  ∘ Software Testing is about Feedback
  ∘ Software Testing is about being Objective
  ∘ Software Testing is about being correct, always correct
· Reality
· Real test automation is possible but needs the right attitude first
· Even if you’re lacking skill, you can still do limited Real test automation, and then grow

Most Automated Testers are Incompetent or Fake

Almost every automated tester claimed doing well, until …
Here is a story told by Michael Feathers (renowned agile expert and the author of ‘Working Effectively with Legacy Code’) in 2009:

It happens over and over again. I visit a team and I ask about their testing situation. We talk about unit tests, exploratory testing, the works. Then, I ask about automated end-to-end testing and they point at a machine in the corner. That poor machine has an installation of some highly-priced per seat testing tool (or an open source one, it doesn’t matter), and the chair in front of it is empty. We walk over, sweep the dust away from the keyboard, and load up the tool. Then, we glance through their set of test scripts and try to run them. The system falls over a couple of times and then they give me that sheepish grin and say “we tried.” I say, “don’t worry, everyone does.”

During over 16 years of experience in Web Test Automation (hands-on scripting and…