Choosing the best alternative is a common task in software development and testing. A group of beta users may need to choose the best user interface from a set of prototypes. Or imagine the members of an open source project voting for a policy. In the November 2008 issue of MSDN Magazine , Dr. James...

Whether you are new to Windows Communication Foundation (WCF) or have worked with it a bit, there are some testing techniques and principles that will make your WCF work easier. In the July 2008 issue of MSDN Magazine , Dr. James McCaffrey walks you through some examples for getting started with basic...

The most fundamental form of Web testing is HTTP request/response testing. This involves programmatically sending an HTTP request to the Web application, fetching the HTTP response, and examining the response for an expected value. In the May 2008 issue of MSDN Magazine , James McCaffrey shows you how...

Today we are launching another new Virtual Labs. In the April 2008 issue of MSDN Magazine , James McCaffrey showed you how to simplify SQL stored procedures test automation using LINQ using the LINQ to SQL provider. The article now features a link to our Virtual Lab where you can experiment with these...

The need to test a program that accesses and manipulates a back-end SQL Server database is very common. In many such cases, the application interacts with the back-end data through the use of SQL stored procedures. In the April 2008 issue of MSDN Magazine , James McCaffrey shows you how to simplify SQL...

Windows PowerShell, the new Microsoft command shell and scripting language, is a great platform for several kinds of lightweight test automation. In the March 2008 issue of MSDN Magazine , James McCaffrey shows you how to use Windows PowerShell to create quick and easy UI test automation for any kind...

Custom test automation scripts have the advantages of being quick to write and providing maximum flexibility. However, a downside to using custom test automation is manageability. Your testing effort can become overwhelmed by the sheer volume of test scripts, test case data, and test results. In the...

There are several techniques you can use to test the user interface of a Windows application such as the System.Reflection classes or Win32 API functions such as FindWindow. But the development of the UI Automation library may be one of the most important advances in test automation to date. Compared...

Here's a question from a reader who's working with the code that James McCaffrey (also known as Dr. James McCaffrey in our article archives) provided in his article Build Quick and Easy UI Test Automation Suites with Visual Studio .NET from the January 2003 issue of MSDN Magazine. I have attempted to...

This post represents the beginning of a little experiment: we're going to post questions directed to our column authors via the column e-mail aliases, and let you take part in the conversation. Our authors will answer as they are available, and we encourage you to chime in with questions or comments...