Java Testing and Design- P4: The ultimate test of every software construction effort is the user’s success using the product to accomplish some practical goal. No matter how much state-of-the-art technology goes into the software, success can only be judged through the lens of the user. | The Three Waves 129 commercial tools space Wily Introscope Mercury Interactive LoadRunner Segue SilkPerformer RadView WebLoad and Empirix eLoad and the open source tools space PushToTest TestMaker The Grinder and Apache Jme-ter offer the same basic four features graphical interface recorder playback and report utility. They all expect you to do the work of writing and maintaining test scripts. Two significant efforts are underway to solve the test script maintenance problem application modeling tools that generate tests automatically and the second generation of Web Service standards that define ways to model the workflows of a Web-enabled application in XML. From Models to Tests Many software development and test automation tools companies publish modeling languages that enable a software architect and developer to describe a finished software application. For example Compuware OptimalJ implements the Object Management Group OMG Model Driven Architecture MDA . MDA enables you to visually describe an application and Opti-malJ writes Java code for you that implements the application. The MDA description tells OptimalJ all about the context of each function in the application. Since they are translating the model to code already it is natural that the product is also able to translate the model into a test suite that checks the application for functionality scalability and performance. Another example of a model-driven system is IBM Rational Rose. It implements the Unified Modeling Language UML also from the OMG. UML is the industry-standard language for specifying visualizing constructing and documenting the artifacts of software systems. UML lets a software developer note a blueprint for construction. IBM Rational s products can then write a test suite from the same blueprint. The downside to using a commercial software development and modeling tool is the vendor lock-in that a business suffers over time. If IBM Rational is not able to keep up with your changing .
