Taking Testing Seriously

CHAPTER 6How to Apply Automation in Testing

—By James Bach and Michael Bolton

There are many wonderful ways in which tools can be used to help software testing. Yet, all across the industry, tools are poorly applied, which adds terrible waste, confusion, and pain to what is already a hard problem. Why is this so? What can be done? We think the basic problem is a shallow, narrow, and ritualistic approach to tool use. This is encouraged by the rarely examined and absolutely false belief that testing is a mechanical, repetitive process. Good testing, like programming, is instead a challenging intellectual process. Tools in testing must be applied by people who understand the complexities of tools and of tests. This is as true for testing as for development, or indeed as it is for any skilled occupation from carpentry to medicine.

Some people believe that AI has changed everything. This is not so. AI is a tool. It is neither a stakeholder nor a responsible social actor. AI can do “smart” things and help us in our projects, but no tool can be accountable for its own actions. And the corporations that offer AI tools make no warranty, either.

Our vision of “test automation” puts the tester at the center of testing, while promoting a way of thinking that celebrates the many things tools can do for us. We embrace tools without abdicating our responsibility as technical people to run the show.

Tools can be powerful, and we are going to say encouraging and helpful things about them. But ...