A Recorded Framework

Record and playback has a negative stigma. Careful use though can result in something that is usable.

Maximizing reuse is the obvious choice in any framework. With reuse one minimizes the amount of effort required in maintaining the automated scripts. There are a few considerations when looking at a tool to achieve this:

• Does the tool support calling scripts from within a scripts?
• Does the tool support another means of calling a script?
• Can a script be saved as a function and called as a function?
• Does the tool support a global object map?
• Does the tool support associated libraries?

These various features reduce maintenance by facilitating reuse. The structure of the scripts needs some consideration.

• How to pass data?
• How to handle failure?
• What granularity should be used in setting up the scripts?

These considerations depend on the capabilities of the tool. The most useful options in dealing with this are to use more advanced frameworks which in general mean that scripts are coded rather than recorded.