Dialectical unification of test methods (II)

3. Manual and automated testing

Manual testing means that the system is operated by the tester, and the automated testing is performed automatically by running the testing tool and testing script on the computer. Automated Testing has many advantages, such as high execution speed and shortening the test cycle, the same test can be run multiple times to reduce the monotonicity of the test, reflect the test results, and do not know how to run it 24 hours a day, therefore, in the test work, we try our best to automate the test or expand the coverage of the automated test. However, there is a large investment in the early stage of automated testing, which has high requirements on the objects to be tested and has other limitations.
Software testing automation cannot replace manual testing. Both of them have corresponding testing objects and scopes:
1) The tool itself has no imagination and flexibility. According to industry statistics, automatic testing can only detect 15-30% of defects, while manual testing can detect 70-85% of defects; therefore, automated testing has its own limitations and is not suitable for testing new functions of software. It is especially suitable for regression testing and ensures the accuracy and objectivity of the tested parts.
2) In the logic test, acceptance test, applicability test, and physical interaction test of system functions, it is also difficult to implement through automated testing. Manual testing of black box testing is usually used;
3) unit testing, integration testing, system load or performance testing, stability testing, and reliability testing are suitable for automated testing;
4) when the interface and requirements change frequently, the development cycle is short, or a one-time software development project (rather than a software product), automated testing is thankless, large investment and low output.
5) Some test tools can only run on Windows platforms, not MAC/UNIX platforms.
In most cases, manual and automated testing are combined to complete the test task in the most effective way.

<To be continued>