Wednesday, July 29, 2009

Journey of a typical Test Automation enthusiast from Laymen to expert Laymen

Hi,
This is Virtualkey (my keyboard name ofcourse…), I just want to share how my understanding regarding test automation has undergone various twists and turns ever since I started test automation. To start with, I always hated coding, for some reason my brain suddenly stops working when I start coding. Simply to say, coding was never my best part of interest. This is precisely the reason why I choose QTP as my functional test automation tool.
My selection criteria were…
1> VB Script --- Simple to code
2> Record and Play back --- not much to code
3> Great User Interface --- key word view, expert view (I need not write code again, just a key word should do the job )
With QTP providing all these cool features, is definitely a promising tool for most of Test Automation enthusiasts like me. And QTP is in big demand in market however, so why not QTP? I heard a lot about Win Runner those days, in fact tried it couple of times, but then you see TSL (test script language) is more of C-Language kind of thing, and hence no no to WR. I used to think who the hell on earth would love to use TSL kind of thing while on the other hand I have a tool with simple VBScript.
With all my pre requisites satisfied, I am totally convenienced that QTP is my choice for functional test automation. I started learning QTP going through ‘Help’, Hey! You know what? I had a very bad habit of going trough help documents, instead of putting my hands on keyboard and playing around with application. My perception always is that there could be nothing which ‘help manual’ would not cover regarding any application. And I understood that they would only help you understand the intention of test automation in a better way.
I was always at bay whenever I started learning QTP. My sources of learning were Blogs/Forums/Communities/Websites. Every time I search for QTP in google there are too many search results. And if you observe there are thousands of questions/answers/discussions/definitions/comparisons (product comparisons, feature comparisons, version comparisons).
Where to start? What to read? I used to end up nowhere. This is when what I call ‘HEAD BANG’ syndrome quietly entered into my life. You want to know what it is! This picture should explain by itself. And I slowly understood that this guy is not a stranger to most of us.

Monday, July 13, 2009

How QTP identifies objects !

Hi,

I got this flow graph form one of my friends long back, i hope this would help you guys understand QTP well.



Cheers,
Virtualkey.

Thursday, August 28, 2008

Pair Wise Test Case Generation

Pair Wise Test Case generation is a technique used to judiciously reduce number of test cases on empirical basis.

General Scenario:
We will be given test case document sheet, which ofcourse contains test cases, and we sincerely execute them all and take pride in either completion or finding bugs.
Have you ever thought, whether test cases we were given are sufficient enough to unearth maximum number of issues ?
Didn't you ever get a questions like...
1>On what basis does these guys decide total number of test cases ?
2>Is that based purely on PM/TL/Consultants experience, or complexity of application ?
3>Do these guys pick them randomly ?
4>You may say, in our organization it goes this way that way
5>But, is there any mathematical basis on which number of test case be decided

Here come Orthogonal Arrays into picture, (now its time to brush your mathematical concepts to understand what these Orthogonal arrays are, Hint: Google it)

There is some thing called Orthogonal Array technique, which is used to accomplish above said task, i.e. reduce number of testcases on Emperical basis, which ensure complete test coverage and maximum possibility of unearthing issues with minimum number of testcases.

Ok, thats fine but how does i work it out for me.
Don't bother, we being a black box tester need not write orthgonal arrays and all that stuff

Solution:

Of course, there is, which is called Pairwise Testcase generation
I have written a detailed article on how to leverage Pairwise Testcase generation to increase test productivity.
Please click here.

Virtualkey
TestersDesk.com