28 September 2010

The shock of it all

Once upon a time when I was 'yay' high (shows to his head, indicating it was very recent) I started writing Selenium tests to test the UI compoenents of my ASP.NET application. As you may know ASP.NET screens are notoriusly not easy to test, expecially if you are lazy (side note: you can extract much of you ASP.NET server side logic in separate classes whithout ties to the ASP.NET application service suing the Class Method pattern.) and the only think a poor developer can do in order to test them (I'm not going into the not testing it at all option or just 'my clicks are enough attitude') is to write some good old UI automation tests.
There is nothing wrong with UI automation tests, mind you, I think they are greate since you are sure you've tested the final integration of your product as shown to the user. What I find appaling is the customers reaction of seeing such tests executed.
Let me tell you - and no, pleas, do not hold your breath - they are blowed away. Amazed. Shocked to the core how good they are. Screens flying, textboxes filled, data showed in grids, filtered and etc. The whole UI testing nine yards. And they want more, they want to start using that in their own projects. It is a presentation ass kicker.
And then we start our fivehundred or more unit-test/functional test suite that executes under a couple of minutes testing almost everything in the application and they are emotionally dead as fish. Oh , its nice can we talk about deadline issues now, please? Right.
I have nothing more to say. I'm appaled. Well, I was anyhow when I was 'yay' high (shows to his head, indicating it was very recent).

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