TOOL DEPENDENCY

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Issue summary

Test automation is strongly dependent on some special tool.

Category

Design

Examples

1. You have written all the automation scripts in the proprietary language of a particular capture-replay tool
2. You have to change to a different tool, but now you can't run any of your existing scripts without major work.

Questions

How to make sure that if and when the tool will have to be changed, you don't have to start again from scratch?

Resolving Patterns

Most recommended:

• RIGHT TOOLS: use this pattern if your present tool doesn't fit the Software Under Test (SUT) well enough
• TOOL INDEPENDENCE: this is the pattern of choice to solve this issue

Other useful patterns:

• ABSTRACTION LEVELS: this pattern helps you separate the technical tool layer from the functional test cases
• OBJECT MAP: use this pattern with all tools

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