Get the Balance Right: Acceptance Test Driven Development, GUI Automation and Exploratory Testing
Michael Holm Larsen · 2012
Depending on who you talk to, of our testing challenges can be solved by doing some particular variant or flavor of “in vogue” software testing techniques. In the Agile community, Driven Development and Acceptance Driven Development are quite hot properties. So hot, in fact that some programmers and programming managers have declared that Test is Dead or, at least, is figuratively so. Others speak to the proliferation of frameworks and tools that allow for automated testing of the front end/GUI interface, and that this spells the future of testing. Others say that active, sapient and human” exploratory testing is the truly effective method of performing software testing. Which group is right? The answer is all of them are right, and none of them are right. All three of these approaches, applied with maximum effort and efficiency as standalone initiatives, will not guarantee bug free code. Taken together, with a good understanding of where each area excels, where each area has deficiencies, and where each can leverage the strengths of each other, programmers and testers can bring a balance to development and testing efforts that are much more likely to find the issues that matter. Biography Michael Larsen is a senior tester with SideReel.com, a wholly owned subsidiary of Rovi Corporation, currently working at the Rovi site in San Francisco, California. Over the past two decades, he has been involved in software testing for products ranging from networking equipment to capacitance touch devices to Internet applications. Michael serves as a Director for the Association for Software Testing (AST) and is the Chair of the Education Special Interest Group. He actively teaches software testing through the Black Box Software Testing series of classes offered by AST. He is a black belt in the Miagi-do School of Software Testing, is the co-founder and primary facilitator for Weekend Testing Americas, and is the senior producer (and frequent commentator) for Software Professional’s “This Week in Software Testing” podcast.