As I struggle to find a tool that is current enough to automate
tests for a Silverlight 4.0 app, my former QA manager and thoughtful
testing buddy, keeps spouting the same message to me. Alex Kell
keeps saying my first mistake was to let the programmers pick SL4 in
the first place. We have tools that can automate SL2 and even SL3.
Alex says, why not convince the programmers to use the older versions of
SL.
His point being, if testing is really so
important, then why shouldn’t we select our product’s coding
technologies based on the ease of testing them? It’s that thing we
always hear about called, “testability”.
When
the initial SL4 decision was made, I sheepishly took Alex’s advice. I
asked the lead architect if he could use SL3 instead. I explained how
easy it would be to convert my existing automated test framework to
drive SL3. He paused for two seconds, then said “no”, the SL4 bindings
were superior and more favorable for our project. Can you blame him? I
can’t. Of course, any team starting a greenfield project would want to
begin with the latest supported code version.
So
now I'm getting busy rewriting my framework using Microsoft’s CodedUI
platform, which has SL4 support and is used elsewhere on my team.
In
the meantime I’m haunted by Alex’s advice and wonder how hard I should
have pushed. On the other hand, there is merit in adaptability. To be
able to support your team with the best testing possible, based on their design choices…
…well that is something too.
What do you think?
