Automated testing: Future and present, advantages and disadvantages

Let me share some thoughts about Automated testing, advantages and disadvantages as well as some predictions for future development. Usually, articles start with the current situation and through several stages progress towards the future. This time let us try a different approach ... let's look at the future first and if still interested in further reading ... then continue with advantages and disadvantages as well as some tools used to perform Automated testing.

Without further ado ... let's slide headfirst into the future. The future of automated testing is likely to be influenced by several key trends and advancements, including:

1. Artificial Intelligence and Machine Learning: Automated testing is likely to become more sophisticated and intelligent, using AI and machine learning techniques to identify areas of the application that need testing, generate test cases, and optimize the testing process.
2. Cloud-based Testing: With the rise of cloud computing, more and more organizations are likely to adopt cloud-based testing, which provides scalability, flexibility, and cost savings.
3. Increased focus on DevOps and Continuous Testing: As organizations adopt DevOps and continuous delivery, automated testing will play an increasingly important role in ensuring that software is delivered quickly and reliably.
4. More sophisticated Test Automation Frameworks: Test automation frameworks are likely to become more sophisticated, offering improved support for parallel testing, continuous integration, and distributed testing.
5. Greater emphasis on Shift-Left Testing: With the increasing popularity of Agile and DevOps, organizations are likely to place greater emphasis on shift-left testing, performing tests earlier in the development cycle, when it is cheaper and easier to resolve issues.
6. Expansion of Test Automation to new domains: Automated testing is likely to expand into new domains, such as security testing, performance testing, and accessibility testing, to provide more comprehensive testing coverage.
7. Integration of testing with AI-powered tools: AI-powered tools, such as robotic process automation (RPA) and intelligent process automation (IPA), are likely to integrate with automated testing, providing new and innovative ways to test software.

Overall, the future of automated testing is likely to be defined by increased sophistication, greater integration with other testing tools, and a focus on delivering high-quality software more quickly and reliably.

As promised, let us discuss the present of Automated testing, starting with a definition of what Automated testing is. Automated testing is a process of using special software tools to perform tests on a software application without manual intervention. The goal is to validate that the software behaves as expected, identify and fix bugs and improve the quality of the software. The tests are automated, meaning that they are executed without human intervention and can be run repetitively to detect issues early in the development cycle.

For some time now it has been an essential aspect of modern software development. It involves the use of specialized software tools that perform tests on the software application automatically and provide results in a short amount of time. The tests can range from simple unit tests that validate individual pieces of code to complex integration tests that check how different parts of the application interact with each other.

The advantages of automated testing include:

1. Speed: Automated tests can be run much faster than manual tests, making it possible to test large applications in a fraction of the time it would take manually.
2. Consistency: Automated tests are run using the same scripts each time, ensuring that the results are consistent and repeatable.
3. Early detection of issues: Automated tests can be run continuously, allowing developers to detect and fix issues early in the development cycle, when they are cheaper and easier to resolve.
4. Improved quality: Automated tests provide fast and accurate feedback, enabling developers to deliver higher-quality software faster.
5. Increased coverage: Automated tests can cover a wide range of scenarios and edge cases, providing more comprehensive testing coverage than manual testing alone.
6. Reduced costs: Automated tests can be run repeatedly without manual intervention, reducing the cost of testing over time.
7. Increased efficiency: Automated tests can be run in parallel on multiple machines, increasing testing efficiency and reducing the time required to complete tests.
8. Improved reliability: Automated tests are less prone to human error and provide more consistent results, improving the reliability of the testing process.
9. Better organization: Automated tests can be organized and maintained in a structured way, making it easier to manage and maintain the testing effort over time.

However, it's important to keep in mind that automated testing is not a silver bullet. To be effective, it requires careful planning, design, and execution, and must be combined with other testing methods, such as manual testing, to provide comprehensive coverage of the application.

As next step, let us look at some of the available tools. At the moment, there are many tools available for automated testing, both commercial and open source. Some popular tools include:

1. Selenium: An open-source tool for automating web browsers, allowing tests to be run on multiple platforms, browsers, and operating systems.
2. JUnit: A popular open-source framework for Java that provides support for writing and running automated unit tests.
3. TestNG: An open-source testing framework for Java that supports data-driven testing and provides more advanced features than JUnit.
4. Cucumber: An open-source tool for writing and executing acceptance tests, which provide a way to describe the desired behavior of the application from the user's perspective.
5. Appium: An open-source tool for automating native, mobile web, and hybrid applications on Android and iOS platforms.
6. Jenkins: An open-source tool that provides continuous integration and continuous delivery (CI/CD) support, including the ability to automate the testing process.
7. TestCafe: A JavaScript-based end-to-end testing framework for web applications.
8. Robot Framework: An open-source tool for acceptance testing and robotic process automation, which provides an easy-to-use tabular syntax for writing tests and libraries for different application technologies.

These are just a few of the many tools available for automated testing. The best tool for a particular project will depend on the technology stack, the type of application being tested, and the goals of the testing effort.

Not all is gold that glitter and there are several disadvantages of automated testing that should not be omitted to be taken into consideration:

1. Initial setup cost: Automated testing requires significant time and effort to set up initially, including the development of test scripts, test infrastructure, and test data.
2. Maintenance cost: Automated tests must be maintained as the application changes, requiring ongoing time and effort to keep the tests up-to-date and relevant.
3. Dependency on correct test data: Automated tests are only as good as the data they are run against, so if the test data is incorrect, the results of the tests will also be incorrect.
4. Limited creativity: Automated tests follow a set of predefined scripts and may miss issues that a human tester might identify through exploratory testing.
5. False positives: Automated tests can sometimes produce false positive results, indicating that there is an issue when there isn't one, which can be difficult to diagnose and fix.
6. Limited ability to test certain scenarios: Automated tests may struggle to test certain scenarios, such as complex user interactions or the performance of the application under heavy load.
7. Difficulty in testing UI: Automated tests may struggle to test the graphical user interface of an application, particularly if the interface is complex or changes frequently.
8. Dependence on technology: Automated tests are dependent on the technology they are designed to test, so if the technology changes, the tests may need to be updated or rewritten.

Taking the risk to repeat what was already said ... It's important to keep in mind that automated testing is not a silver bullet, and that it should be used in conjunction with other testing methods, such as manual testing and exploratory testing, to provide comprehensive testing coverage.

Nevertheless automated testing is widely and successfully used by many companies across a range of industries, including technology, finance, healthcare, e-commerce, and retail. These companies, and many others, use automated testing to improve the quality and reliability of their software, and to speed up the delivery of new features and updates. The use of automated testing is especially common in companies that follow Agile and DevOps methodologies, where software is delivered quickly and continuously, and testing is an integral part of the development process.