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Why Fake Automated Testers and Software Test Architects Love ‘Headless Browser Testing’?
To hide their incompetence in E2E Test Automation.
In previous articles (#1, #2), I mentioned the embarrassing history of ‘Headless Browser Testing”:
- PhantomJS (2010–2015)
Deprecated in 2017. - Google Chrome headless is a separate implementation, before v112
Real software testers know what it means.
Despite that, the love of “Headless Browser Testing” did not fade. The default running mode in so-called modern Cypress and Playwright is headless. Why is that? In this article, let’s dive into this matter, trying to explain the human factors behind that. (I will soon write another article from a technical aspect. There is only a tiny neglectable speed benefit for headless, but with big issues and missing many good benefits of running visible E2E UI tests).
Table of Contents:
· Most software engineers do not have E2E Test Automation knowledge
· Senior ‘Engineers’ naturally prefer concealing their lack of comprehension in E2E Test Automation.
· What If we run E2E (via UI) tests in normal mode, frequently?
Most software engineers do not have E2E Test Automation knowledge
This is a fact and not their fault. A graduate with a degree in computer science spends three or four years in university, focusing predominantly on programming. Surprisingly, no specific courses were dedicated to E2E test automation and Continuous Testing, areas considered more challenging by industry professionals.
“In my experience, great developers do not always make great testers, but great testers (who also have strong design skills) can make great developers. It’s a mindset and a passion. … They are gold”.
- Patrick Copeland, Google Senior Engineering Director, in an interview (2010)95% of the time, 95% of test engineers will write bad GUI automation just because it’s a very difficult thing to do correctly”.
- this interview from Microsoft Test Guru Alan Page (2015), author of “How we test software at Microsoft”“Testing is harder…
