It’s easier to write about tooling

It’s easier to write about tooling than it is to write about the decisions we took and models we made prior to choosing it. I can write about a specific test I designed with WebDriverIO far easier than I can write about the strategy taken, oracles used or even the trade offs.

Aside from being a popular approach, there’s a lot of value in this directness. I’m able to succinctly communicate a specific problem and solution that might help someone else solve a similar problem.

The downside is when someone doesn’t understand this subtle communicative strategy and makes the wrong assumption(s) about the decision path. This seems to be a common pattern when talking with someone new to automation in testing: they just want the tool and none of the other fluff.

My solution for this problem is a bit of fishing: I will recommend a tool and then ask a lot of background questions even if that means I retract my initial recommendation.