Once again it is summer, once again Ministry of Testing comes up with interesting 30 days challenge.
This year I spent my vacation already in May, so that excuse for not doing this won’t do; I’ll have to tackle this one.
The challenge is about test automation, sponsored by SmartBear (I do not like their products, but what can you do except not to use them 😉 ).

Day 1: Look up some definitions for ‘Automation’, compare them against definitions for ‘Test Automation’

Whereas automation definition in Wikipedia (the source of the sources) is actually handling a wide range of different mechanical and programmatical approaches, Test Automation is considered only to be software related and listed as part of software development. I do consider that one could test things mechanically and control the checkers, tools and results by machine, at least when it comes to simple checks. Wherever you’ll need human interpretation, it is actually easier to get a fellow human to make a judgement. Machines are good to make repetitive tasks easy, but they are also well capable to repeat an erroneus step several times automatically, unless someone controls the situation.
But anyhow, the biggest difference between automation and test automation according to wikipedia is the narrowing of test automation on something that’s done with software.

Day 2: Begin reading an automation related book and share something you’ve learnt by day 30.

Agile Automation and Unified Functional Testing by Rajeev Gupta

I’m also trying to make it through this course:
REST API Automation testing from scratch-(REST Assured java)

Day 3: Explore the automation thread on The Club and contribute to the conversation

Added my contribution to https://club.ministryoftesting.com/t/when-to-start-automation/11743/10