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by ou_ryperd
2313 days ago
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I take your point, and kudo's. Where I'm coming from is having seen some tool vendors sell "scriptless" test automation tools. UFT has it, and what used to be Rational Functional Tester has it (I peddled RFT in a previous life). The vendors sold it very successfully to non-technical managers, and it looks cool, the dusty companies and large companies all fell for it. "Your Business Analysts can automate tests". But a few months down the line, you realise that it is a rock muffin. No modular code, but linear end-to-end scripts. The login page changed? Update hundreds of test scripts. Who looks bad? Test automation as a profession. |
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The DSL I'm working on is already quite modular so as to reduce repetition, to hide complex-looking things like CSS selectors behind user-defined names and to support the definition of data sets independent of the tests that use them.
A test for a given page can import test steps, adding further actions and assertions if required and injecting one or more sets of data over which to iterate.
Sets of data can be defined inline (to support quick learning) or defined in separate files and imported and referenced (more ideal).
Properties of a page being tested can be defined separately to the test itself, including aspects such as the URL and named locators expressed as either CSS selectors or XPath expressions, referenced later as needed by the user-defined name. This reduces to one the number places many page-specific details need changing, as well as allowing the tests (which reference by name pre-defined locators) to flow more naturally.
I'd greatly appreciate your feedback in a few months when we have something workable to demonstrate. My email is in my profile if you're happy to help.