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Script assistant - philosophy
Things should be made as simple as possible, but not simpler
- Albert Einstein
The use of recorders in test automation has always been debated . While most experts advocate against the
use of recorders for test automation, recorders have stuck around for a while. What makes the recorders a center
of such a great opposition from experienced testers ? What is it in recorders that have made them to still
stick around ? The answer lies in the way . . .
. . .The WET Script assistant utility offers an
innovative solution that lies somewhere in between.
We call this as the 'proxied UI' technique. Please note that this is not the same as
test recorders that use a http proxy to record the http messages being sent to and from
the system under test. WET is a true enduser simulation testing tool and does
not use http as the testing mechanism. The script assistant UI comes with the convenience of
records, while it overcomes some of their limitations. Using this technique, a draft
version of the automated scripts is created by executing the manual tests on a
simulated browser. The simulated browser is a UI application that is similar to a web
browser in its look and feel but works differently. Using this simulated browser you
can connect to an IE browser that is already running on your system and recreate the
view of the IE browser. The tester can then instruct this simulated browser to perform
various operations – which is converted to test scripts
. . .
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Object repositories
Browser("title:=bug").check_text “txt”
Browser("title:=bug").TextField("name:=Name").set “xyz”
Browser("title:=bug").TextField("name:=Email").set “abc”
Notice how everything about the object has to be described –
The Browser's title is 'X', which has a child TextField whose
name is 'Y' and so on. Obviously in any application, the same
objects will have to be re-used in many places which means that you
will have to repeat the same code in every place that you use the
object.
Consider the second drawback:- Say that the name of the
Textfield is modified on a future date from Name to User. This would
mean that all the scripts that use this line should change to reflect
this. This poses a big maintainability issue
. . .
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Bret about WET
Another exciting project that experienced programmers have built using Watir
as a platform is WET. WET provides a lot of the features that Watir users have
been asking for: a comprehensive logging facility, better support for modal
dialogs, and the ability to read test data from Excel.
. . .
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Test automation
Myth -
Recorders make test automation easier
The Truth:
They make recording easy …
But they also make it easy to create automation that is
difficult and expensive to maintain
A recorder can serve as a training device to help you
learn . . .
- Courtesy: Star Quality
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Cathedral and the bazaar
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Every good work of software starts by scratching a
developer's personal itch.
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Good programmers know what to write. Great ones know what to rewrite (and reuse).
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If you have the right attitude, interesting problems will find you.
- Eric raymond
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