A look into some of the basics of automation.

Test automation is the use of Software to control the execution of tests, the comparison of actual outcomes to predicted outcomes, the setting up of test preconditions, and other test control and test reporting functions. Over the past few years, tools that help programmers quickly create applications with graphical user interfaces have dramatically improved programmer productivity.

This has increased the pressure o­n testers, who are often perceived as bottlenecks to the delivery of software products. Testers are being asked to test more and more code in less and less time. Test automation is o­ne way to do this, as manual testing is time consuming.

As and when different versions of a software are released, the new features will have to be tested manually time and again. But, now there are tools available that help the testers in the automation of the GUI which reduce the test time as well as the cost, other test automation tools support execution of performance tests.

Many test automation tools provide record and playback features that allow users to record interactively user actions and replay it back any number of times, comparing actual results to those expected.

Test Automation is an important subject since it’s the most important part of any tester’s job. It’s clearly not the best use of time to click o­n the same button looking for the same dialog box(expected result) every single day. Part of smart testing is delegating those kinds of tasks away so we can spend time o­n harder problems. And computers are a great place to delegate repetitive work.

That’s really what automated testing is about. We try to get computers to do our job for us. o­ne of the ways a tester describes his goal is to put himself out of a job – meaning that automate the entire job. This is, of course, unachievable so we don’t worry about losing our jobs. But it’s a good vision!