Why I Prefer Ruby As E2E Test Automation Scripting Language? Part 2

More suitable for E2E testing

This article is featured in the Software Testing Weekly #260.

In Part 1, I explained some of Ruby’s great features in general scripting. In this article, I will go a bit deeper in the context of E2E Test Scripting.

7. Dynamically locating file

In compiled languages such as Java, referring to relative files is not straightforward, including it in CLASSPATH. This might be fine for coding. But for E2E testing, referring to test data (files) is rather common, the dynamic-ness of scripting language is clearly advantaged here.

8. Less restrictive on single-quoted string

In compiled languages such as Java, there is a distinct difference between single-quoted (character ‘a’) and double-quoted strings (string “a”).

In E2E testing, QA engineers rarely need to worry about the single character data type, because our end-users don’t care. While there are still differences between '' and "" in Ruby, at many cases, we can use it freely, such as send_keys('testwise') or send_keys("testwisely)".

9. Ruby Mixins

Besides inheritance (in OO), Ruby supports Mixin to enhance code reuse. Again, Ruby makes it easy to use in E2E test scripts. For example, nearly every one of my father’s E2E test scripts has this statement:

include TestHelper

Which loads in the reusable functions defined in test_helper.rb.

10. Ruby Block

For QA engineers, Ruby Blocks might be too deep of knowledge. My father invented an effective yet simple approach to handling waiting (common in web test automation) using this feature.

For more, check out “My Innovative Solution to Test Automation: Easy Wait in Web Automation Scripts”.

11. Ruby does not have some annoying features.

We often see irrelevant features in some E2E test scripts, such as:

• await, async

• Promises in JavaScript

The above makes sense in coding but is irrelevant in E2E testing. Somehow, developers have injected these concepts into E2E test automation.

Here is an example, a ‘good version’ from a Cypress expert:

it('adds numbers via aliases', () => {
  cy.visit('public/index.html')
  cy.get('[name=a]').invoke('val').then(parseInt).as('a')
  cy.get('[name=b]').invoke('val').then(parseInt).as('b')
  cy.get('#result')
    .invoke('text')
    .then(parseInt)
    .as('result')
    .then(function () {
      expect(this.a + this.b).to.eq(this.result)
    })
})

It even used:

• String literals as local variables, referred as an ‘alias’

• Pass function name parseInt as parameter

The equivalent version of Selenium Ruby is much simpler and intuitive.

it "adds numbers" do
  driver.get("public/index.html")
  a = driver.find_element(:name, "a")["value"].to_i 
  b = driver.find_element(:name, "b")["value"].to_i
  result = driver.find_element(:id, "result").text.to_i
  expect(a + b).to eq(result)
end

Besides, node_modules is quite annoying, totally unnecessary for E2E testing (there is no need, performance or otherwise, to have a local cache of dependent libraries).

Some might say, “You are targeting JavaScript”. Not particularly, Python, a language I am quite familiar with, has a strict indenting rule which is also not good for E2E testing.

The Resources Zhimin Created to Help Achieve Real End-to-End Test Automation & Continuous Testing

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Related reading:

• Cypress vs Selenium WebDriver Comparison by Example

• Test AJAX Properly and Efficiently with Selenium WebDriver, and Avoid ‘Automated Waiting’