Correlations

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This article brought a few analogies to the fore.

Test automation is usually implemented in a bulk manner - more tests, faster, get coverage. What you ultimately get is a huge load of tests with a maintenance nightmare and possibly dodgy execution. Even the leaner approach of only automating what makes sense doesn't remove the underlying issue.

It is only with a smarter implementation strategy that one can achieve the purported benefits of test automation. An engine provides a stack of reusablity. Reusable components have been vouchsafed within software programming as being an ideal since the advent of the first function.

While the marketers try to spin the opposite story, test automation is effected by writing a program to test a program. Why then are the basic premises of good software design so commonly avoided in test automation?

I will continue to advocate an approach to test automation that results in a fitter test suite than a test suite bulking program.