聽聽微軟員工說: Why we automate
Why we automate
http://blogs.msdn.com/imtesty/archive/2007/08/30/why-we-automate.aspx
* Increasingly complex test matrices.
- (Whether you like it or not) the Windows operating system proliferates throughout the world. But, even the different Windows operating systems in common use throughout the world are staggering.
這一點確實很重要, 有時候光是support win platforms就有十幾二十幾種combinations. 即使你只run 一些簡單的測試, 所花的時間就叫你受不了. 例如:
你只要種組合只run 40 個test cases, 40 / 8(假設每小時run 8個test cases) * 10 (10種平台的組合) = 50 hrs. 50 小時, Oh, My God!! 你怎會受的了
* Sustained maintenance.
- Microsoft supports many of its products for 7 to 10 years. So, the more test automation we can hand off to our sustained engineering teams, the less cost the company has to bear in the long term.
就像我之前說的, 微軟maintain的時間很長, 並且用的人很多. 是很適合發展test automation 去cover大部分主要的功能
* Increase breadth of coverage.
- Automation is distributed across the network, it is not ran on one or two desktops or on a few lab machines.
- Many product teams have extensive test harnesses that are capable of scheduling tests, configuring environments, then distributing tests to hundreds of machines in a lab, or even on idle machines on the network. This way we not only run test automation on pre-defined environments, but also on work machines and other systems.
- Test automation is running 24 hours a day and collecting and providing valuable information.
增加廣度這一點test automation是很合適的, 不過我們公司是沒像Microsoft這麼有錢, 只會在重點scenario上執行這樣的測試
* We don't rely on automation to find bugs, we use test automation to provide information.
- We know that automated tests do not find a great deal of defects after the design and development phase of that automated test.
- However, many of our products have daily builds and instead of rerunning a bunch of tests to ensure changes from a previous build have not affected previously tested functionality an automated test is more efficient.
這一點是我以前無法說服自己的. 因為之前很多員工都問我, test automation真的能找到bug嗎? 因為通常第一次跑完之後, 大概就幾乎再也找不出什麼問題. 除非是RD有改錯, 然後會在regression被找到. 其他大概不會再有任何新鮮事發生了
當然啦, 如果你的測試程式是會隨機產生test data, 那可能會比較有可能找到更多bug. 但是這可能也不是每個test program都可以這樣做的
所以可能要告訴自己承認這個事實吧!! 這樣之後才會對test automation的使用做出正確的判斷. 至少我會從 provide infroamtion開始思考
* Increased job satisfaction!
這招通常會讓某些人很有成就感, 但是也是有人不買單的
留言列表
