Can A Tester Without Coding Skills Perform Testing?

"Testers who spend valuable time getting their automated test code to work will have less time to focus on testing the code your customers will use" – Joel Spolsky

This question has instigated many debates on the web for quite some time now. The rise of agile teams requiring teams to be “generalizing specialists” coupled with the increasing demand by recruiters for testers to have coding skills have increased the pressure on testers to gather some coding skills.

This question of whether testers should have coding skills or not is not new and has been asked back and forth by many people in the testing field. 

Let us now analyze whether the answer is yes or no.

Though testing is generally associated with coding, there are several types of testing where this is not necessary (Ad-hoc testing, usability testing, to mention a few). To meet the demands of quick product delivery, companies want to perform testing at a faster pace. It is obvious that a tester who has to spend time writing automated test codes will take a longer time. In such situations, Automation testing can reduce the time that would have otherwise been spent on the tedious coding process. Testers would also be able to spend their time learning about core testing concepts and principles instead of battling with getting their code to work.

Automation testing helps testers perform testing while they sit back and view the end results. Testers involved in automation testing would typically set up test cases, maintain logs and test reports.

There are several automation testing tools that have undergone multiple versioning and changes from time to time to accommodate the varying demands of testing companies. In recent times, several automation testing tools have been released which can be used by testers having little coding experience. These automation testing tools support different commands and ready-made scripts. The testers using these tools can easily run test cases effectively without writing codes.

Though some parts of automation tools require an understanding of code to develop and analyze test cases, companies can still be productive even with a tester having little knowledge of coding. At present, recruiters are torn between demanding for testers with good coding knowledge and those without. In due time, especially with changing times and demands, automation tools will become completely code-less so that an average person like you and me, with the help of basic tutorials, can perform software testing.

In conclusion, one can argue that test automation is no more a niche skill. Any tester without a sound knowledge of coding can create and run automation scripts.

Therefore, my answer to the above question is, Yes – Testers Without Coding Skills Can Perform Testing. What's yours?

Author Bio:

Prashant Chambakara is associated with TestingWhiz. TestingWhiz is a code-less test automation tool for web apps and cloud applications. It is built on advanced technology which includes regression testing, keyword driven testing and data driven testing techniques.

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