ICS 121: System Test Automation

System test automation is a way to automatically test an entire software product.
Two main approaches:
- Record and playback
- Programmatic testing
Why use system test automation?
- Test the whole product as the user will see it, including any bad interactions between components
- Automatation is better than manual: faster, more consistent, less tedious

WinRunner: record and playback GUI and Web application testing for MS Windows
SilkTest: record and playback GUI and Web application testing for MS Windows
HttpUnit: programmatic framework for automatically testing web applications, similar to JUnit

You still need to think through a QA plan and test suite.
- Automating ad hoc testing is still ad hoc and does not give much assurance.
You will want to be able to edit the test scripts to add conditionals and loops.
Test can be very brittle:
- Every change to the program could change the test steps or expected output, thus forcing you to spend more time maintaining automated tests
- Leave automated system test for the end of the develoment cycle, focus on other QA activities until the UI is stable