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How to obtain knowledge / experience in automated testing?
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| 2006me 2007-06-01, 7:16 pm |
| Hello, I have a question and I would like to get your opinion /
suggestions. I have +8 years experience in testing / QA and a overall
IT of +15 years. My testing experience I have is as a manual
application tester and hardware tester. In all my years I never work
for a company that had any of the known automated testing applications
(QTP, Test director, etc.) in use. I did all my testing on a manual
basis.
When looking at job descriptions these days I see more and more the
request for experience and knowledge of one or more of the big testing
applications. But in return I don't (seldom) see anybody stating that
they are willing to take a person without that scripting / automation
knowledge and train.
My question is now "how to obtain this expert knowledge and
expertise"? Would downloading and trying any of the demos (E.g. QTP,
etc.) fill at least the basic need? Like having a workable expertise?
Would knowing a scripting language help? How did other obtain there
expertise? How did you manage to get your employer to provide training
on those tools? How did you convince your employer to have one of the
testing application?
I know only experience and hands on will provide the full required
years of experience. But it is tough in today's job market to get it
if no one is willing to train. Looking forward to your suggestions.
Regards, Michael
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| H. S. Lahman 2007-06-02, 7:13 pm |
| Responding to 2006me...
> My question is now "how to obtain this expert knowledge and
> expertise"? Would downloading and trying any of the demos (E.g. QTP,
> etc.) fill at least the basic need? Like having a workable expertise?
> Would knowing a scripting language help? How did other obtain there
> expertise? How did you manage to get your employer to provide training
> on those tools? How did you convince your employer to have one of the
> testing application?
>
> I know only experience and hands on will provide the full required
> years of experience. But it is tough in today's job market to get it
> if no one is willing to train. Looking forward to your suggestions.
Experience is a Catch-22 for almost any professional endeavor; everybody
wants experienced people.
Lacking experience, you need to at least be able to talk about it
intelligently in interviews just like a June Grad. For that googling
will uncover far more good information than a forum like this. (BTW,
make sure you understand subtleties like the difference between
automated test execution and automated test generation.)
Downloading demos is a very good idea but to use them effectively you
need something to actually test. Another possibility is to join an open
source project that does automated testing. In both cases such testing
of a real application qualifies as a resume entry for experience.
In the end, though, those things will just increase your chances of
getting a job in a shop that does automated testing where you can get
some serious experience. So the next time you switch jobs you should use
automated testing as /your/ requirement on /them/.
*************
There is nothing wrong with me that could
not be cured by a capful of Drano.
H. S. Lahman
hsl@pathfindermda.com
Pathfinder Solutions
http://www.pathfindermda.com
blog: http://pathfinderpeople.blogs.com/hslahman
"Model-Based Translation: The Next Step in Agile Development". Email
info@pathfindermda.com for your copy.
Pathfinder is hiring:
http://www.pathfindermda.com/about_us/careers_pos3.php.
(888)OOA-PATH
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| Michael Bolton 2007-06-03, 7:12 pm |
| > Hello, I have a question and I would like to get your opinion /
> suggestions. I have +8 years experience in testing / QA and a overall
> IT of +15 years. My testing experience I have is as a manual
> application tester and hardware tester. In all my years I never work
> for a company that had any of the known automated testing applications
> (QTP, Test director, etc.) in use. I did all my testing on a manual
> basis.
Instead of thinking that you did all your testing on a manual basis,
you might better describe it as doing your testing on an intellectual
basis. Software testing isn't really done with the hands; it's done
with the brain. The hands are just extensions.
> When looking at job descriptions these days I see more and more the
> request for experience and knowledge of one or more of the big testing
> applications. But in return I don't (seldom) see anybody stating that
> they are willing to take a person without that scripting / automation
> knowledge and train.
Few ads are likely to say that. Ads only say a fraction of what the
company will do after you're hired. You'll notice also that few ads
state explicitly that they'll provide you with a desk, a chair, and a
computer, but many companies do that anyway. Few ads state that
they'll train you in company policies and procedures; few ads state
that they'll train you in the application that they're developing; and
so forth.
> My question is now "how to obtain this expert knowledge and
> expertise"? Would downloading and trying any of the demos (E.g. QTP,
> etc.) fill at least the basic need? Like having a workable expertise?
> Would knowing a scripting language help? How did other obtain there
> expertise? How did you manage to get your employer to provide training
> on those tools? How did you convince your employer to have one of the
> testing application?
The demos might help. Knowing other scripting languages would almost
certainly help; self-training and practice is the key here Your job
is to convince your prospective employers that you have the skills
required to /test/; that's the non-trivial skill set. Learning a new
programming language, after you've already learned one, is relatively
trivial. Your employer is not likely to find the perfect person; like
spouses, the good ones tend to be untried or already taken. You
convince your employer to provide training in those tools (if that's
what they and you both really want) by convincing them that your
testing skills are so overwhelmingly good that they want YOU;
persuading them to allow you to learn something specific is relatively
easy.
Note that if they're only interested in facility with some tool,
they're correspondingly not interested in testing. Don't feel bad
about not being accepted at such companies. Note also that the people
doing the initial filtering are not likely to be the people who make
the hiring decision. A skilled tester should be able to figure out at
least three ways to get around this problem.
---Michael B.
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| Vladimir Trushkin 2007-06-04, 4:22 am |
| On Jun 1, 8:41 pm, 2006me <a9803...@gmx.net> wrote:
> Hello, I have a question and I would like to get your opinion /
> suggestions. I have +8 years experience in testing / QA and a overall
> IT of +15 years. My testing experience I have is as a manual
> application tester and hardware tester. In all my years I never work
> for a company that had any of the known automated testing applications
> (QTP, Test director, etc.) in use. I did all my testing on a manual
> basis.
TestDirector that you have mentioned is not an automatic testing tool.
It's a testing management tool. As such it does not change the way you
used to test. You would still need to design test cases, combine then
into suits, and execute. The only difference is keeping everything
organized and in one place.
As for the automation tool you will need to learn or refresh
programming knowledge. I guess it will be difficult to start not
having such background. I myself started automating tests having a
strong programming knowledge. And it helped me a lot. I've seen people
who tries to use it without an appropriate background and it was of
pain for them to get started.
> When looking at job descriptions these days I see more and more the
> request for experience and knowledge of one or more of the big testing
> applications. But in return I don't (seldom) see anybody stating that
> they are willing to take a person without that scripting / automation
> knowledge and train.
Many want to automated tests. Few know how to do it. Even fewer
succeed.
Companies like automation because it saves much time in the test
execution and provide better level of confidence when you are running
most of test for regression testing near the deadlines. We have a
steady trend of the increasing demand for automation. This is a
reality that we can't change, so we have to adapt. In the early ages
of the machinery people did many things manually. Only those of them
who continued to learn and tamed new equipment survived. Same happens
to the software testing today.
> My question is now "how to obtain this expert knowledge and
> expertise"? Would downloading and trying any of the demos (E.g. QTP,
> etc.) fill at least the basic need? Like having a workable expertise?
> Would knowing a scripting language help? How did other obtain there
> expertise? How did you manage to get your employer to provide training
> on those tools? How did you convince your employer to have one of the
> testing application?
The required level of knowledge can be obtained at home, with an
evaluation copy. All you have to do is specify what you are going to
automated and start doing it. Most of tools are designed for usability
and are easy to learn. I can only speak of three tools that I tried
myself: VisualTest, WinRunner, and SilkTest. Former is long dead and
does not worth mentioning. Last two are a big portion of what we call
the mainstream of the industry. Winrunner is more stable whereas
SilkTest is more usable. I would recommend selecting the SilkTest
because it's more user-friendly.
Once you have selected a tool start recording tests. See how the tool
writes the code to manipulate the application under test. It simply
catches events and writes them down in a series of commands. When
executing, it generates the events based on a script. By doing record-
review-playback-edit-playback you will learn how to do basic operation
with different UI elements.
> I know only experience and hands on will provide the full required
> years of experience. But it is tough in today's job market to get it
> if no one is willing to train. Looking forward to your suggestions.
I suppose being able to write simple tests and to use different
features of a tool described in help and documentation will do. As a
manager if I were choosing who to hire between a person with a strong
testing background plus some basics in the automation and a person
with a strong automation background and weak testing knowledge, I
would chose one with a stronger testing experience. The reason is
simple testing is the process of finding defects. It cannot be done
effectively by machines... yet. :)
----
Best Wishes,
Vladimir
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| In the absence of suitable application for automation, you can
consider automating some routine tasks that you perform on a daily
basis. You can use WATIR to open your mails, deleting items in thrash,
changing your explorer settings.. and so on. This will help you
understand scripting language like RUBY and WATIR as well. Before
doing that, you should certainly understand meaning of automation,
what is possible, what are its pitfall etc.
As far as training is concern. biggest training is on the job
training. Most of time, you get application and tool. If you are
responsible for automation, you will fiure out how to use tool.
Training, might help but atleast I never had any formal training on
any tool.
Thanks,
G
[url]WWW.TestingG.Com[/url] - *UPDATED*
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Learn, Share and Keep Learning.
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| I 'slid into' a test automation position about 5 , 6 years ago, so
here's my advice:
First, buy the VBScript in a Nutshell book and then download a demo of
Mercury's Quick Test Professional. Love it or hate it, it still has
the largest market share. Having some knowledge of a scripting
language is a good thing, as is knowing one tool. Even though the
languages are different from tool to tool, the process is basically
the same.
Then, start interviewing new employers. ;) Ask them if they are
using automated testing, then ask them [nice] quesitons about how
successful they've been. If they have automation projects that are on-
going after two years or more, they have a clue about what's
involved. Make your interest in 'helping' the automation team clear.
For me, I started getting experience by executing QARun scripts that
someone else had written. From there I learned first some basic
troubleshooting (re-running them if they fail is always a good idea),
then made modifications, and so on.
It's interesting to ask different people which skill they think is
more important in a test automater: programming skills or testing
skills. I've done both and testing skills are much, much more
important. If you liked algebra in High School, and were pretty good
at it, you can learn test automation if you have a testing mentality.
It's logic, "if this is true then this other thing should be true --
if it isn't the test fails", etc.
It's easier for programmers to write the code, and that's a fact, but
if they don't get testing, all the coding abilities in the world
aren't going to help them.
I don't spend much time writing code anymore, I'm working as a
consultant and I mostly advise clients on the use of test management
tools and test automation. I manage to keep my hand in it, though!
Good luck!
Kathryn
On Jun 1, 12:41 pm, 2006me <a9803...@gmx.net> wrote:
> Hello, I have a question and I would like to get your opinion /
> suggestions. I have +8 years experience in testing / QA and a overall
> IT of +15 years. My testing experience I have is as a manual
> application tester and hardware tester. In all my years I never work
> for a company that had any of the known automated testing applications
> (QTP, Test director, etc.) in use. I did all my testing on a manual
> basis.
> When looking at job descriptions these days I see more and more the
> request for experience and knowledge of one or more of the big testing
> applications. But in return I don't (seldom) see anybody stating that
> they are willing to take a person without that scripting / automation
> knowledge and train.
>
> My question is now "how to obtain this expert knowledge and
> expertise"? Would downloading and trying any of the demos (E.g. QTP,
> etc.) fill at least the basic need? Like having a workable expertise?
> Would knowing a scripting language help? How did other obtain there
> expertise? How did you manage to get your employer to provide training
> on those tools? How did you convince your employer to have one of the
> testing application?
>
> I know only experience and hands on will provide the full required
> years of experience. But it is tough in today's job market to get it
> if no one is willing to train. Looking forward to your suggestions.
>
> Regards, Michael
| |
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| Right Kathryn. If you are a good tester and equip yourself with the
knowledge of some scripting/tool, getting into automation might be a
bit easier. Also, as far as market share is concern, probably Mercury
has got the biggest share. IMO, if you have knowledge of any tool,
learning another tool should be very easy. Ideally, it should not
matter on which tools you have worked on, but yes I have seen
employers insisting on getting people with specific tool knowledge.
Thanks,
G
[url]WWW.TestingG.Com[/url] - *UPDATED*
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Learn, Share and Keep Learning.
| |
| 2006me 2007-06-06, 7:32 pm |
| Hello, thanks to all of you for taking your time and letting me know
what you think about my question and sharing your experienced with
me.
I will keep it in mind when I'm playing with the demos and learn
python. :-)
Regards, Michael
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| Pradeep Soundararajan 2007-06-07, 4:22 am |
| << On Jun 6, 7:30 pm, 2006me <a9803...@gmx.net> wrote:
Hello, thanks to all of you for taking your time and letting me know
what you think about my question and sharing your experienced with me.
I will keep it in mind when I'm playing with the demos and learn
python. :-)
Regards, Michael >>
It might be a good idea to re visit your plan pretty often. This might
help you discover traps early and avoid most of them. It might also
lead you to more wonderful ways of doing or learning things.
I consistently see a tremendous value in doing that.
-- Pradeep Soundararajan
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