Intersection of Automation and Exploratory Testing
summary
Claim: exploratory testing and automation are complementary and learning-focused, not opposed. Uses the Gilded Rose refactoring kata run under coverage with combination approvals (approval tests) to generate inputs and visually inspect outputs, producing 11,236 generated cases in the demo and sampling results. Shows disposable automation as documentation, strong-style pairing to turn discoveries into scripts, and reports a real-world outcome of 2,261 fixed issues in 2.5 years. Demonstrates automation failures as invitations to investigate rather than end points.
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chapters (10)
- 0:00Start
- 4:00Product is my external imagination
- 5:58Testers don't break the code, they break your illusions about the code
- 21:11Exploratory Unit Testing of Legacy Code
- 21:36Combining My ideas of the world, Specification and Code Coverage while Testing
- 25:36Leaving a job after 4 years
- 29:48Opportunity Cost
- 35:08Creating automation forces exploration of details
- 35:40Failing automation is invitation to explore
- 41:41Testing Programming Learning
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