GUI automation tool (windows)
in [Python]
|
From: Lawrence D'Oliveiro on 11 Aug 2010 02:50 In message <i3teqh$ckf$1(a)reader1.panix.com>, Grant Edwards wrote: > ... nobody's talking about using automated testing to figure out > what users think. That's the trouble. What's the point of a GUI, then?
From: Ben Finney on 11 Aug 2010 03:27 Lawrence D'Oliveiro <ldo(a)geek-central.gen.new_zealand> writes: > In message <i3teqh$ckf$1(a)reader1.panix.com>, Grant Edwards wrote: > > > ... nobody's talking about using automated testing to figure out > > what users think. > > That's the trouble. What's the point of a GUI, then? I've no idea what you're asking any more. The above response seems like a total non-sequitur. But the above exchange convinces me that you're asking it in the wrong forum. This no longer has anything at all to do with Python in particular. -- \ “Books and opinions, no matter from whom they came, if they are | `\ in opposition to human rights, are nothing but dead letters.” | _o__) —Ernestine Rose | Ben Finney
From: Jean-Michel Pichavant on 11 Aug 2010 05:47 Grant Edwards wrote: > On 2010-08-11, Lawrence D'Oliveiro <ldo(a)geek-central.gen.new_zealand> wrote: > >> In message >> <abe9b308-db83-4ca8-a71a-12d2025a7615(a)i31g2000yqm.googlegroups.com>, Alex >> Barna wrote: >> >> >>> On Aug 10, 10:05 am, Lawrence D'Oliveiro >>> >>> >>>> Can???t understand the point to it. ???GUI automation??? is a contradiction in >>>> terms, because a GUI is designed for use by humans to do manual tasks, >>>> not ones that can be automated. >>>> >>> Automating GUI is for testing. >>> >> But the most egregious GUI problems are going to be with humans being >> unable to figure out how to do something, am I right? How are you >> going to uncover those problems, except by testing with real people? >> Automated testing isn???t going to do it. >> > > Automated GUI testing isn't intended to uncover those sorts of > problems in GUI design. Automated GUI intended to uncover problems in > the underlying program functionality, and is used mainly for > regression testing to insure that changes made to a program didn't > cause any unintended changes in program behavior. > > Automated GUI testing often isn't even being used to test the program > whos GUI is being automated. It's often used to test _other_ programs > with which the GUI-automated-program interacts. > > Yep, as an example, I worked on a cardio medical system (X ray). In order to get to the market, such system must prove its robustness, part of the proof was about chaining thousands of patients without a crash nor X ray failure. This is where GUI automation comes in. The tool was simulating the interaction between a doctor and the system application GUI and was working 24/7. JM
From: Steven D'Aprano on 11 Aug 2010 06:20 On Wed, 11 Aug 2010 18:50:15 +1200, Lawrence D'Oliveiro wrote: > In message <i3teqh$ckf$1(a)reader1.panix.com>, Grant Edwards wrote: > >> ... nobody's talking about using automated testing to figure out what >> users think. > > That's the trouble. What's the point of a GUI, then? Are you trolling, or do you really fail to understand that the concepts of *testing a GUI's functionality* and *asking users what sort of interface they want* are independent concepts? Let's put it this way... "Nobody is talking about using automated testing to find out what command line switches users want on their command line tools." "That's the trouble. What's the point of a CLI, then?" Do you see the difference now? -- Steven
From: Steven D'Aprano on 11 Aug 2010 07:27
On Wed, 11 Aug 2010 06:12:49 +0000, Grant Edwards wrote: > Automating a GUI > isn't done to test how well the GUI works for real users. Or to put it another way... automated tests aren't useful for usability testing, regardless of whether one is testing a GUI app or a CLI app. > It's done mainly for two purposes: > > 1) Regression testing to make sure that the GUI's behavior (good, > bad, or indifferent) hasn't changed since the previous revision. > > 2) To test the functionality underlying the GUI. I would like to point out that automating GUIs isn't just done for testing purposes, but has other reasons as well. Probably the most common is for the same reason any automation is done, be it writing a script or building a robot: to reduce the amount of manual effort needed to do some repetitive or frequent task. Mouse and keyboard event recording software used to be one of the killer apps for power users back in the days of classic Apple Mac and early versions of Windows. I'm not entirely sure why they've faded away... it seems to have left an empty niche, for power users who aren't comfortable writing shell scripts, batch files or messing about with DBUS, but still want to automate repetitive tasks. Another common use is automating interactions with web sites via mechanize. -- Steven |