Protract Yourself

As technology advances and accelerates, test automation is vital. Aleksandar Ristic, senior engineer at software engineering services and solutions provider, Comtrade, discusses three ways Protractor can help.Once two separate entities, today’s world has seen a marriage of test and development teams. Not just a marriage of convenience, it is a highly rewarding relationship that is absolutely vital to software production. In fact, the closer the teams are, the better – and the less noise and bugs there will be in a product’s code.

New technologies are entering the market at a phenomenal rate; causing development speeds to increase constantly. At the same time, new functionalities are being added to products before they can even be tested. The undisputed solution is test automation. But where do we invest our time and how do we navigate the large pool of automation tools?

I got lucky: I was in the right place at the right time. I was involved in choosing a test automation tool for AngularJS right at the time when Protractor was in its infancy. I have been using Protractor for the past two years and have experienced three main advantages that streamline processes and help test and development teams have a happy marriage.

1. It’s agile
One of the main advantages of Protractor is that it uses JavaScript, which is the same scripting language used by developers working with AngularJS. As a test engineer, you can therefore collaborate closely with development because they speak the same ‘language’. Maybe they can help you understand the application better, or support you when you’re stuck. The result is test and development teams working side-by-side; one of the main goals of the agile and dev ops approach. Closer collaboration will also give your team extra flexibility. Developers may even help with the writing of test scripts when development is complete and testing is in full swing.

2. It’s simple
JavaScript is the favoured programming language for the world’s 15 most-popular websites. Why? In my view, it is easier to learn than Java (although the main choice for Selenium users will always be Java). There is no need for compiling, while code is descriptive.

3. It’s fast
The Angular team created Protractor (an end-to-end test framework built on top of WebDriverJS) specifically to test Angular applications. The ElementFinder is synchronized with AngularJS, so you’ll experience fewer problems when waiting for an element to appear. Because it is built on WebDriver, there is no risk of losing anything and you can use it for testing non-angular pages.

So, if you are manual tester, consider investing your time in getting up-to-speed with test automation. It won’t just save you time, but allows for easier regression testing.

My advice? Choose your tool wisely and learn it well; it will help you in your work. But don’t forget about the importance of manual testing by relying solely on automation: you will still find your best bugs with exploratory testing.

Finally, make sure you stay close to developers. You are one team and your success will enable you to help developers build better applications through finding bugs faster.