[Wtr-general] Are there any References to Ruby/Watir written byTesters?

[Thomas Healy]

I need to test some of our webproducts and websites in foreign languages and I'm having problems with testing using Asian characters (European characters seem ok)... I set the script to look for specific text like "ßxÈ¡ ¡¸ÏÂÒ»²½¡¹ ÒÔÀ^Àm¡£" --> (this is traditional Chinese for 'select "page forward" to continue') -- but it fails when run... Is there some sort of character setting I need to adjust in Watir? I have not tried the various possibilities but would it work better to change the search text to some encoding like Hexadecimal (\u9078\u53D6 \u300C\u4E0B\u4E00\u6B65\u300D \u4EE5\u7E7C\u7E8C\u3002) work better? 

Unsure what to do... Has anyone run into this yet?

Thanks,

Thom

-----Original Message-----
From: wtr-general-bounces at rubyforge.org [mailto:wtr-general-bounces at rubyforge.org] On Behalf Of Chris McMahon
Sent: Thursday, February 09, 2006 10:06 AM
To: wtr-general at rubyforge.org
Subject: Re: [Wtr-general] Are there any References to Ruby/Watir written byTesters?

This got kind of long.  I hope it's helpful...

On 2/8/06, Paul Carvalho <tester.paul at gmail.com> wrote:
> That's because all the references are
> geared towards programmers and not testers.

Consider the possibility that there is less and less of a difference between them in the future.  That is, all around us, programmers are developing testing skills, and testers are developing programming skills.  Learning Ruby/Watir is a great way to start talking to programmers in their own language.

> I'm persistent, if nothing else, and sometimes it pays off.  Actually, 
> if it weren't for this mailing list, I'm pretty sure that I wouldn't 
> have gotten as far as I have.  (Thank you all for your time and help, 
> by the way.)

You sound like you're good at your job.  As for the mail list, there is a long, long tradition in open source software of mail lists for people to discuss their problems, issues, solutions, gossip, etc.
about the project.  You're right, this list is exceptionally helpful, and it looks like you're using it to good effect.  In other words, communities like this are the way open source software happens.

Look at it another way:  whether open source or commercial, you have to make an investment in the software.  For a commercial project, you invest a lot of cash, which gives you the right to call an 800 number and get reams of documentation;  for an open source project, you invest your time with the community, learning, helping, contributing. 
If not enough people pay a company, the company dies; if not enough
people invest time in the open source project, the project dies.   And
answering questions from beginners is one of the most important things that helps an open source project grow.

> I'm pretty sure that I'm being paid to be a creative *tester*, and not 
> a creative programmer.  Does Ruby/Watir help me do that?  No, not 
> really.  I still haven't figured out how to structure a decent test 
> case in Watir, let alone script it.

But you're learning fast, eh?  So are the rest of us.  Watir is designed to be used in exploring and creating as well as in a write-static-tests sort of way.  If you haven't discovered the "get_foo" methods and "flash" methods yet, ask some more questions about how to use Watir in IRB.  (BTW, also consider scripting the
test(s) first, then structuring them.  That's what "refactoring" is, and it's a powerful way to learn.)

> I believe that there currently is a big gap between the users of Ruby 
> & Watir and the rest of the Tester community who could probably be 
> making use of it.  The Ruby and Watir languages just aren't translated 
> into Tester-speak.

The Pragmatic guys (http://www.pragmaticprogrammer.com/) will be publishing a book by Brian Marick (www.testing.com) in a few months called "Scripting for Testers (with Ruby)".  It aims to be very much like what you describe, a resource for testers with little or no programming experience designed to help them solve common testing problems with scripts written in Ruby.  It's divideded into alternating sections "walking the walk" and "talking the talk" that describe solving real-world problems, and programming practice respectively.  Hopefully it'll help fill the gap you describe.

Finally, to answer sort of an underlying theme, people here regularly bring up the issue that Watir doesn't have the bells-and-whistles of commercial testing tools:  script recorders, clickable GUIs, convenient stuff like that.  In fact, there is active resistance (or at least apathy) on this project to building these things-- mostly because the people that are capable of doing this work generally think that these sorts of features are the wrong way to do testing.

On the flip side, if you see something that you think Watir needs-- ask for it.  That's how I started with the project.  I had no Ruby experience, and just a little Perl.  In my first couple of weeks on this list I asked for about 20 new features-- and I got 'em.  (Mostly to do with support for frames.)

I hope you keep on with it, I think you're on the right track.  Let me know if you want more information about open source, beginner resources, whatever...
-Chris

_______________________________________________
Wtr-general mailing list
Wtr-general at rubyforge.org
http://rubyforge.org/mailman/listinfo/wtr-general