Selenium or Fitnesse as an Acceptance testing Framework? Thoughts?

After trying to get both frameworks operational in my current project, I think I am going to take the leap and try Selenium first. After some research and trial and error, I have been able to get Selenium operational and found great resources on how I can automate the tests with Maven. (which is also currently used by our project)

I even located the Selenium Core add-on that allows for goto and while constructs in the Selenium tests that will allow for move control in my test suites. So I think there is enough critical mass to start with Selenium and see how successful the tests can be.

I’m curious as to other people’s experience and recommendation. I understand that Selenium and Fitnesse provide different benefits and that all projects probably require both. But it seems to me that a good percentage of test cases can really be tested in either. What tool have people chosen to host the tests that could be written in either?

I guess at the end I felt more comfortable writing tests that exercised the actual web pages. (even though I know it may take more work to create the test cases and to design them appropriately so they are not brittle.) Once those tests are created, I feel they I would have more confidence that the results will be valid. I still had a little concern about the problem I may introduce when creating tests in Fitnesse where I don’t have the proper context defined. I felt if I used the web application, the application will ensure I have the proper context.(or else I have correctly discovered a defect) I guess I also may be tainted with my recent experiences when I could not get Fitnesse to work even though the web application worked fine through the browser.

I’m still going to try to get Fitnesse to work, but I will initially start to create my test suite in Selenium. I’ll update future posts as to the progress I am making.

Looking forward to the green bars. So far I have one. 🙂

Author: Terry Bunio

Terry Bunio is passionate about his work as the Manager of the Project Management Office at the University of Manitoba. Terry oversees the governance on Information Technology projects to make sure the most important projects are being worked on in a consistent and effective way. Terry also provides leadership on the customized Project Methodology that is followed. The Project Methodology is a equal mix of Prince2, Agile, Traditional, and Business Value. Terry strives to bring Brutal Visibility, Eliminating Information islands, Right Sizing Documentation, Promoting Collaboration and Role-Based Non-Consensus, and short Feedback Loops to Minimize Inventory to the Agile Project Management Office. As a fan of pragmatic Agile, Terry always tries to determine if we can deliver value as soon as possible through iterations. As a practical Project Manager, Terry is known to challenge assumptions and strive to strike the balance between the theoretical and real world approaches for both Traditional and Agile approaches. Terry is a fan of AWE (Agile With Estimates), the Green Bay Packers, Winnipeg Jets, and asking why? View all posts by Terry Bunio