Re: Testing the case against XP

["Christopher Barber" <address@hidden>]

> As I mentioned before, some types of apps are harder to test than others
> but not impossible.  Our web GUIs are tested using HTTPUnit and have
> pretty good test coverage.  The GUI developers follow the same model
> as everyone else.  A direct manipulation interface might
> be tougher to test but that's a general problem with that kind of
> app.  Surely you wouldn't give up on testing a GUI because it's
> difficult?

No, but you might resort to manual testing instead, especially since the
actual features you are testing oftent would require an AI to properly test
since they are so tied to human perceptions.  Frequently, GUI testing tools
either produce test cases that are more precise than the requirements (and
can fail if you run the test on different graphics hardware or change the
display parameters) or require a lot of special scripting support in your
GUI library.  It is still worthwhile to develop the tests, but not
necessarily at the same time as you are developing the GUI.  BTW, testing
HTTP "GUI"s is not even in the same league as testing real client-side GUIs.