Test Harness Software

Question

Our current test system harness was originally written in 16 bit Clipper 13 years ago and is starting to show it's age. The tests themselves are all written C and ran as executables. While there are solutions for recompiling Clipper code into a 32 bit executable, we would rather move to a more mainstream programming language.

The test system harness handles the work of dividing a test run between a number of clients and reporting the results. We are agnostic about build vs. buy for the harness, so what solutions are people using running automated and regressive tests?

Answer 1

We built our own. It really depends on how big a shop you are and whether you will get back the resources you put into writing one. Writing your own is more expensive than buying, but will be more tuned to what you want than a commercial package. The biggest advantage of rolling your own is that it is flexible. You can modify it to do whatever you need. The downside is that you'll have to invest the effort to build and maintain it. That will add up over time.

Answer 2

If your application is Interactive and can be tested using Automation techniques, I'd suggest looking into AutoIT. We're using it to test C#/.NET applications AND non-.NET applications. And we have reporting of those results built in-house. There's an excellent community of developers for AutoIT as well.