Discussion on: Anatomy of test automation

I was contrasting system integration testing, that I consider End to End testing to be part of, with what I would call partial automation, or using tools and code to assist Exploratory Testing.

I admit I casualty threw the term End to End in there without any discussion. Really it's a whole topic or its own.

I discussed End to End Testing over at The Club:

club.ministryoftesting.com/t/where...

And this is a summary of what I found out:

• End to end testing is typically a system test that follows a user or data journey through the system
• The scope of the test highly depends on the system under test
• There will be a vast number of possible paths through the system
• Judicious selection of as few critical paths as possible is important to avoid high maintenance cost
• Where possible it is preferable to have multiple smaller tests that cover sub systems and system integration over more E2E tests
• Context is king and no one size fits all definition of E2E testing covers all usages