Testing is animportant function of the software development process, no matter howbig or small the development project. But not every company ordeveloper has access to professional testing tools, which can run intohundreds and even thousands of dollars. The good news is that theydon't need them, thanks to the tons of freely available open sourcesoftware testing tools.
Insimple terms there are two major approaches to testing software -- themanual way (a summer intern with a checklist) or through an automatedprogram. With automated testing programs, you can spend a lot of moneyprocuring these tools or distracting yourself from the task at hand byrolling out your customized automated testing software.
Instead, you could head over to sites like Open Source Testing (OST), QAForums, Open Testware, and others that catalog various testing tools and look for something that works for you.
"The largest category of open source testing tools," says Mark Aberdour, who manages OST, "is functional testing tools.This can cover a range of practices from capture-replay to data-driventests, from Web application testing to Java application testing, andlots more in between." Aberdour, who before his current softwaredevelopment role spent 10 years on the other side of the fence insoftware testing and test management, says that the list of open sourcetesting tools also includes many performance testing tools and testmanagement/defect tracking tools, as well as a good number of securitytesting tools.
"If you include unit testing tools,then there are large numbers of tools for the more popular languages,particularly where test-driven development (TDD) is more popular," hesays. There are several tools for testing Web and Java applications,but "as is the way in open source," Aberdour says, "if there's an itch,someone will scratch it, so there are tools available for all manner ofobscure needs." OST lists testing tools for languages such as PHP, Perl, Ruby, Flash/ActionScript, JavaScript, Python, Tcl, XML, and so on. "The list is probably bigger than I've brought together on OST, and TDD practitioners should head over to testdriven.com, which has more focus on that area."
So how do they compare with the expensive proprietary tools? "In some cases, very well," says Aberdour. He points out WebLOAD and OpenSTAas examples that hold up well in the performance testing market -- nosurprise there, since they were both originally commercial tools.Underlining his point, Aberdour says, "You have tools like Wireshark, which is huge in the security market, and Bugzilla and Mantis in the defect tracking sector. In functional testing there are a number of really great tools (Selenium, Abbot, Jameleon, jWebUnit, Marathon, Sahi, soapui, and Watin/Watir to name a few) with strong feature sets."
According to Aberdour, in addition to the tool itself, the advantageof the commercial tools is often their integration with an automatedsoftware quality (ASQ) suite, and of course an established companybehind them, which will feature in a lot of people's selectioncriteria. Here again things are looking good for open source testingtools. Aberdour points out the RTH test case tool which integrates with Watir, HttpUnit, JUnit, MaxQand the commercial WinRunner. Even bug trackers like Mantis andBugzilla integrate with functional testing tools and test case trackingtools.
When it comes to reliability and accuracy, Aberdour says the classicopen source arguments apply. The popular tools are tested and used by ahigh number of people, and many of the tools have evolved large andsustainable communities with many people feeding back onquality-related issues. "For many of these tools, innovation is highand release processes rapid. Yet it is not a free-for-all -- the codebase may be open, but write access to the repository is closelyguarded, and developers have to earn the right to commit."
According to Aberdour, the main issue for people using the tools isnot whether their need is served, since in most cases you will find atool to do the job, but whether the tool is mature enough to invest in."Test automation is a major undertaking that has high costs in terms ofupskilling your test team and creating test scripts, etc., and peopleneed to know that the tool is a good investment, whether or not thereis a license fee to pay. People will be asking if the tool is going tobe around in five years' time, what levels of support are available,how good is the feature innovation, bug fixing, release schedules, andso on." Aberdour thinks there is a big gap in selection and evaluationsupport and paid technical support services, which is what he wants tofocus on next with OST.
Of course there are strong and sustainable communities around themore popular tools that provide excellent support, but Aberdour saysthe market isn't at the point yet where there is a lot of commercialsupport available. Yet there are some examples of support companiesevolving around open source products, and a lot of the product teamswill hire themselves out. "In a commercial sense this market is stillquite young, but it will mature, and when the product integration,community maturity, and commercial support are right, it has thepotential to be highly disruptive. Gartner reckons the ASQ market isworth $2 billion a year, and while Hewlett-Packard and Mercuryabsolutely dominate, there are hundreds of smaller proprietary vendorsat real risk from open source disruption. Things are certainly movingin the right direction."
Open source testing tools offer great performance and are a bargaincompared to proprietary testing tools. The lack of a formal andconsistent support structure might work against some tools being usedto test mission-critical apps. But if you are an open source developeror with a software development company pondering over your testingbudget, spend some time checking out the testing tools Web sites andforum boards. You might save yourself some serious bucks.
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