Yes and no. For larger projects, or ongoing long-term projects, they
can be valuable. But for small projects, the time needed to learn and
implement them is usually not worthwhile. A common type of automated
tool is the record/playback type. For example, a test engineer clicks
through all combinations of menu choices, dialog box choices, buttons,
etc. in a GUI and has an automated testing tool record and log the
results. The recording is typically in the form of text, based on a
scripting language that the testing tool can interpret. If a change is
made (e.g. new buttons are added, or some underlying code in the
application is changed), the application is then re-tested by just
playing back the recorded actions and compared to the logged results
in order to check effects of the change. One problem with such tools
is that if there are continual changes to the product being tested,
the recordings have to be changed so often that it becomes a very
time-consuming task to continuously update the scripts. Another
problem with such tools is the interpretation of the results (screens,
data, logs, etc.) that
can be a time-consuming task.
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