End-to-End Test Automation is not Research
An automated tester is hired to perform testing tasks that a preschooler can probably perform manually in automated test scripts. So, get real work done on Day 1, then every day onwards.
A repost of my past article on Medium.
Recently, I got one reader’s feedback on “Why Raw Selenium Syntax is Better than Cypress and Playwright?” article. He did not like my style of suggesting Selenium WebDriver; instead, he preferred me to list ‘Pros and Cons’ that help the readers make decisions.
My style is being direct with a specific suggestion like Facebook’s clearly named “WebDriver (Selenium for web, Appium for mobile) for UI Tests” in its Testing Pyramid.
The speaker of this fantastic “Continuous Integration at Facebook” presentation is a rare real Test Automation Engineer.
“For all of our end-to-end tests at Facebook we use WebDriver, WebDriver is an open-source JSON wired protocol, I encourage you all check it out if you haven’t already. ” — Katie Coons, a software engineer at Product Stability, in “Continuous Integration at Facebook”
Her recommendation of WebDriver is direct, with no “Pros and Cons”.
“For 95% of all software applications, automating the GUI is a waste of time. For the record, I typed 99% above first, then chickened out. I may change my mind again.” — Alan Page’s Blog (2008), author of “How We Test Software at Microsoft”
“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)“Automated testing through the GUI is intuitive, seductive, and almost always wrong!”
- Robert C. Martin, co-author of the Agile Manifesto, on his blog (in 2009)
Given the failure rate of E2E test automation is so high, it is far better to follow the real expert’s advice, instead of reviewing and comparing frameworks.
Test Automation Engineers, our target, the Web, barely changed in the last two decades.
Like in real life, you want to follow the advice of accomplished experts or professionals, right?
“Facebook is released twice a day, and keeping up this pace is at the heart of our culture. With this release pace, automated testing with Selenium is crucial to making sure everything works before being released.” — DAMIEN SERENI, Engineering Director at Facebook, at Selenium 2013 conference.
This is the shortcut to success.
Why do I rarely write “Pros and Cons” articles?
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