Software Test Automation

Introduction

Usually, test automation means one of the following:

1. Using software to simulate user actions on a website.
2. Automatic API testing
3. Writing scripts for performance testing
4. Integrating test scripts into an existing CI/CD process.

WEB: Simulating user actions

A more modern library for browser simulation - PlayWright

In website automated testing, or as it can also be called - Web UI Testing, everything was mostly tied to Selenium

You can learn this library and use it together with one of the following programming languages:

• Java
• Python
• JavaScript
• Ruby
• Kotlin
• C#
• + an unofficial library for PHP

Choosing a language

Since Selenium works with completely different programming languages, a beginner tester may face the question - which of them to learn for automation.

If you already work as a tester and want to start automation in the same company - this question can be answered by a DevOps engineer or whoever performs this function, a sysadmin or one of the developers.

The deciding factor is the existing infrastructure. Your automated tests will be integrated into the existing CI/CD process, and it is desirable to do this in the most organic way. If everyone uses, say, Maven, then it is desirable to write tests in Java and if Ruby is used everywhere, then you should perhaps take a closer look at Watir and not pure Selenium.

What to do if you don't work anywhere yet?

I advise you to study job sites and learn the combination that is in greater demand.

I have used the following combinations

• Selenium + Java
• Playwright + Python
• Selenium + Python
• Selenium + Robot Framework
• RFBrowser + Robot Framework

I chose Python because I knew the language a little + it appears in many job postings.

I chose Java because it is the most native language, part of Selenium is written in Java + there are quite a few tutorials on the Internet for this combination.

Selenium

You don't have to learn Selenium itself. There are several higher-level frameworks with «simpler» commands, designed for non-programmers.

The most popular of them is probably Robot Framework

There is also Watir

Cucumber and others.

Automatic API testing

The first step to automatic API testing is learning how to call APIs using some tool.

How to access the REST API using Python 3 you can learn here

Examples of calling the GitHub API with curl you can study here

Writing scripts for performance testing

In this discipline, you will need knowledge of at least one programming language.

The choice is wide and depends on the company's stack. But in general it can be both Bash Scripting and Python or Golang

An example of the simplest Bash script that monitors the system state you can study here

Integrating test scripts into an existing CI/CD process.

This is a completely different story, and you need to learn the tool that is used for CI/CD . It could be

• TeamCity
• GitLab
• Jenkins

or something else.

The ability to properly integrate your tests is the first step towards DevOps

Article author: Andrei Olegovich