Advanced QTP

Go to the Hebrew version of this post

So, what is this all about?

This blog is meant to be a resource hub for advanced programming in QTP. It's meant for all of you who are tired of meaningless courses and empty books, that teach how to open the OR window (hint - it's a click), but say nothing of design patterns, writing maintainable scripts, encapsulating logically related functions, and other must-know coding standards.
It seems that no one knows we're programmers, not just users.

There are forums and sites who deal with the same problem, some of them are truly excellent (SQAForums immediately comes to mind). However, since their main business is problem solving, none of them is structured enough for straight, old-fashioned learning. This blog will try to fill that gap.

The blog will serve both Hebrew and English readers, so each post will have a link to its Hebrew counterpart. Feel free to go straight to the Hebrew Site.

Hope you'll find all of this helpful. I'm opened to suggestions, questions and improvements, so don't hesitate. After all, this is all done for you :)

Excellent day,
Combustible Moo.

A little about me, and the motivation behind this

I've been working with Mercury's Quicktest Professional for a few years now, and it never ceased to amaze me: Mercury (and the rest of the world) treats me as a user.

All the courses out there, all the book, the hi-tech night studies, help files and whatnot, they all teach me the basics (even the so called "advanced" courses). So, I know what each button does, and I know where to look for the correct sub-menu, and that's all swell, but I have never learnt how to write code. Not really.

Sure, the "advanced" courses deal with some code elements, but as far as they're concerned, I'm like an Excel user, who could use some macro-writing skills. It seems no one understands that in order to be a good in QTP, you need to be good in programming. Yes, you can work with QTP in "user mode", even write your own code, but usually you'll end up with a hard-to-maintain, poor ROI and unreadable test. There are exceptions, but that's what they are, exceptions.

First I thought it's just the books and course, but then I understood: my project managers also think QTP is a point-and-click, record-and-play program. And they've come to expect record-and-play auto-magic results, not willing to acknowledge that sometimes even a QTP script has bugs. But maybe the worst thing is watching my colleagues think of themselves as mere users, afraid to take that extra step towards becoming truly excellent at what they do.

So, the project managers wont push us there, the books aren't any good, and the courses are usually worse. Is there no hope? Well, not all is lost.
There are others out there who see things as I do (or to be more precise, I see things as they do), and are trying to set things straight. But for all of their effort, there's no place that teaches real, hard-core programming for QTP.

So, I've taught my self to listen to the programmers talks in the hallways, steal their books and read their code, and inch my way into good programming. I think I'm half-way there, but I still want to share what I've learnt, hear some new ideas, and hopefully make it easier for others to take the same path.

Hope you'll join me.