Anti-Patterns for Automated Testing

Patterns—proven, repeatable solutions to common situations that occur again and again—are commonly used in development and to a lesser extent in testing. In addition to patterns, various anti-patterns have been discovered. These are common responses to recurring problems that, while promising, are actually counterproductive. Hans Buwalda describes a set of such anti-patterns that he commonly sees in automated test design and that he feels inhibit scalability and maintainability. Hans discusses anti-patterns including Enter Enter Click Click, Interaction Heavy, Lifeless, Lame, Clueless and a number of others. Knowing these anti-patterns will help you spot potential bottlenecks that could make your own tests unnecessarily difficult to automate. Hans presents thirteen distinct patterns that you can look for in your tests. Feel free to bring in your own anti-patterns and situations you have experienced that you feel are counterproductive toward achieving manageable and maintainable automation.