I came across a write-up that is said to be a discussion between an automation beginner and an automation expert. The write-up is in the form of Q&A, where the expert answers the beginner’s questions. You can find the write-up here. This article talks about automation checks. As a Software Testing person, I got worried by this interaction.
While the write-up covered several points/challenges that are faced by the automation engineers, and in general addressed them, there’s one point that alarmed me, and I felt like I had to write about it.
The questioner asks how to decide how many tests is the right number, for which the expert answers they can’t say (which is the right answer), but then adds “If you have very complex code it needs more tests per number of code lines and if not then you can manage with less“.
(Article updated on May 24, 2019 at 9:27 am local time)
Anyone who is familiar with programming knows that the number of lines of code has nothing to do with the complexity of the code. A single line of code could be so complex that it would require a bunch of testers testing it for days, and hence would require much automation effort. Likewise, a source code could be spanning multiple files, but might require only 2 or 3 checks. The complexity is not decided by the number of lines of code. It depends on what the code does. I wonder how come the automation expert is not aware of this, and why they answered the question like that.
As a curious reader, I learnt one thing very early. Don’t go by the publisher. Don’t even go by the author. Scrutinise and think about what is written. The same author would be delivering a masterpiece on one book/write-up, but may write something that does not even make sense, or is unacceptable, in another book/write-up. So, one got to be careful on what they are reading and digesting, especially in these days of ubiquitous content!
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