A Guided Tour of Automation for Testers

Many good testers have a limited understanding of test automation. I think that's a shame, because it often keeps them out of discussions where their skills would be valuable.

One of the difficulties of venturing into a new area is understanding the lingo. Which words are general and enduring? Which words are specific to a particular technological solution?

Another issue is that, as you grapple with specific issues, it's often hard to relate these issues to the big picture in a meaningful way. Indeed, what is The Big Picture? You're likely to have a better view of some parts than others. It takes time to build up a complete and balanced picture from experience.And when you learn the material from context, you may worry that there are holes in your knowledge even when you've got considerable experience in other areas.

In this session, we'll start with a simple Big Picture and then disassemble it to see how it's made. We'll look at both the concepts and some representative examples of technologies that implement those concepts. We'll look at some heuristics for choosing automation practices and compare them with manual ones to see how they are similar and how they differ.