What is IBM Rational Method Composer product?

One the major products of IBM is the Rational Method Composer or RMC. 

About Rational Method Composer

- This product has proved to be quite reliable in increasing the effectiveness as well as the agility of the software system or application.

- It provides platform that is quite flexible for process management. 

- This IBM product is equipped with the most comprehensive tooling of the software industry. 

- It also comes with the richest process library so as to provide assistance to the companies in the implementation of the effective processes so that they can come up with many successful IT and software projects. 

Characteristics of Rational Method Composer

1. The rational method composer have some very new practices that will surely improve the performance of many of the leading process experience as well as expertise in the following areas:

Ø  Agile development

Ø  Governance and compliance

Ø  Requirements management

Ø  Quality management

Ø  Change management

Ø  Release management

2. It helps greatly in the identification of the improvements that are needed by the mapping practices. The improvements identified by the rational method composer can be adopted in increments and improved also as per the business objectives of the project.
3. The rational method composer offers a choice of over 100 process guidance that are both select-able and customizable and are inclusive of the IBM rational unified process. This guidance can help you in solving common management, business and development problems. 
4. The facility of providing the corrective action and measured results is what makes the rational method composer more user friendly. Such measure let you harness the effectiveness of the practice adoption.
5. With Rational Method Composer you get the privileges for managing, authoring, measuring, evolving as well as deploying the effective processes that are tailor made for your software system or application project needs since it is the leading the eclipse – based tool of the software industry.
6. The rational method composer maintains consistency in driving the results across the whole project with the help of the best practices which have been proven and have been integrated with the following:

Ø  Measurements

Ø  Agile

Ø  Reporting

Ø  Project management tools and

Ø  Services

7. A quantum leap forward is represented by the rational method composer and provides process solutions to IBM for the development of the software systems and applications, agile practices and service management.
8. Rational method composer assists in capturing and maintaining the individuals’ own practices and further combines them with the practices and processes of IBM for achieving maximum result. 

One similarity that we can find in each and every project is that there is always a need to minimize the risk, ensuring the predictable results, delivering the high – quality results on time and so on.

Benefits of Rational Method Composer

- The practices provided by the rational method composer can be re-used for composing the process that is right – sized enough for meeting the specific requirements of the software systems and applications.

- The libraries of the rational method composer consist of the most robust practices.

- These practices are guidance for the software development, governance and management and can be very well applied to domains as well as the processes. 

- The following two libraries are shipped along with the rational method composer:

1. The IBM rational unified process 
2. The IBM practice Library

What is the difference between functions and actions in QTP?

Functions and actions are two different aspects of quick test professional. In this article we will talk regarding the two and see what the differences between them are. 

What are functions in QTP?

- In most of the cases you may need to use some segments of code again and again in your tests. 

- In such a case a user defined function can be created which will not only reduce the length of your tests but will also make it easier to be designed, read and maintained. 

- The created functions can consist of the following:

1. Sub routines,
2. Modules
3. VBScript functions and so on.

- Three simple tests need to be followed if a function is to be used in the test from a library:

1. For creating a new function you can select new function library from the file menu. This cause a new tab to open up in the quick test professional window. You can even opt for multiple tests in the same file.
2. Next you need to save the function with extension “.qfl” and associate the appropriate library with that particular function. “Associate function library” option can be accessed from file menu.
3. Now the third step is to invoke the function using the usual simple function call. Quite advanced or sophisticated functions can be generated using DCOM and COM.

What are actions in QTP?

- Whenever you have a piece of code at your disposal you get two options in quick test professional i.e., to either turn it in to a function or a reusable action.

- When the quick test 9 was introduced by the mercury, an argument was made in the favor of the functions for making them more compelling by the means of multi document interface. 

- Many function libraries can be used at once but still mostly one test is used. 

- If you want a reusable action to be edited, the current test has to be shut down. 

- Then you need to open the test in which you want to make the changes, make the changes and then save and close. 

- Later, the original test can be re-opened.

Differences between Functions and Actions in QTP

Now we are stating below some very basic differences between the functions and actions in quick test professional:

1. Passing of Data: 

Functions can access a variety of objects advance as well as primitive like arrays, test objects (such as frames, pages and so on.) and dictionary objects. But this is not the case with the actions rather they can accept only primitive kind of data types such as parameters like integers, strings and so on.

2. Use of Resources: 

Each action is provided with the following basic things:

a)   A folder

b)   3 separate VBS files

c)   A subfolder for keeping snapshots

d)   A certain amount of load time

e)   An excel spreadsheet and

f)    A local object repository.

On the other hand a function consists of only the code and nothing else.

3. API: 

For functions, the function libraries can be attached to the test scripts through the API of the quick test professional. As for the actions the insertion of the calls in the existing actions is not possible through the API of the quick test professional rather it can be done only through the interface.

4. Return Values: 

Actions return the values which are quite difficult to be read in syntax as well as understand. On the other hand the return values of the functions work well and similarly in all the languages.

With actions your test can be divided in to business processes or logical units along with the scripts that are more efficient as well as modular.

What is a step generator in QTP?

Step generator as we all know is quite a useful as well as popular feature of the complete test automation suite “quick test professional”. 

What is a Step Generator?

- It generates a library of the functions which also forms a part of the quick test professional suite.

- The step generator serves the purpose of the non recordable as well as record able steps.

- To get to the step generator in quick test professional, just go to the insert menu, then hog down to the step generator option and here you have it. 

- Or, if you do not want to go for this method you can straightaway press the function key F7 which is the short cut key for this whole procedure.

- A range of context sensitive functions are provided by the step generator. 

- With the help of these context sensitive functions it becomes very easy for one to add the steps as required. 

- The steps in the step generated can be added with the required values. 

- The steps mentioned below can be defined in the step generator via the step generator dialog box:

1. Utility object operations
2. Tests only steps or test object operations
3. Call to library functions in tests only
4. Internal script functions
5. Visual basic script functions and so on.

Some examples of such steps are:

1. Adding a step that checks regarding the existence of a particular object i.e., whether it exists or not.
2. Adding a step in which the output or the returned value of a sub routine or method or the result of a conditional statement is stored.

- Any of the values present in the step can be parameterized. 

- Another purpose that is served by the step generator is that using it one can insert steps in tests as well as in functions also. 

- But it has got a limited use when it comes to the library functions. 

- Step generator cannot be used to get access to collections or test object names or a list of the library functions either. 

- Before the step generator is opened up for defining a new step, the place or the point where that particular step is to be inserted is selected and then the step is defined.

What happens when you open the step generator dialog box?

- When you open up the step generator dialog box, the first thing that you need to do is to select the category of the step operation out of the categories mentioned above.

- Then, you should select the function library or the object that is required. 

- The step after this involves the selection of the appropriate operation like either method or property or function. 

- The final step involves the defining of the return values as well as the arguments or the parameters as and when required. 

- After the completion of all these steps, the step is inserted by the generator in to the required test with the corrected syntax. 

- Later, one can add many more steps at the same location itself without shutting down the step generator. 

- Later whenever needed the step generator can be accessed from either of the following:

1. Expert view or
2. Key board view or
3. Active screen.

For what purpose step generator is used?

- Step generator is mostly used for breaking down the tests to obtain better testing results. 

- It will not be wrong to consider this as a debugging process i.e., debugging by giving breaks. 

- Since particular steps can be generated in between the actions, a lot of time is saved. 

- Also, if while recording the tester misses out one step it can be easily inserted afterwards using step generator. 

What are the problems of a C compiler?

Every programming language has some advantages and disadvantages which are not present in the other languages. Some languages are capable of solving some problems better as compared to other languages. But the point is that most of the problems have similar needs, requirements and logic, so the point where languages differ from each other is the efficiency with which they solve the problem.

Some provide more efficient and fluent solutions while others don’t. As we all know C is a basic programming language which was developed to solve problems and develop programs relating to kernels of the operating systems, compilers and graphical user interfaces. C compiler though being fast is not so efficient. It provides many downsides for a large number of problems. Many of us think that C is the fastest language but this is not true.

C++ compiles most of the C programs at the same speed as C++ does. Some of the features of C language like virtual function calls result in over heads. C is not object oriented. This in turn makes it more inconvenient to implement some programs. It is not able to force object orientation everywhere. C makes some programs that require object oriented programming more error prone. C has got a weak typing system as compared to other programming languages. This leads to many programming errors after compilation of the program.

A bigger standard library C++ allows the full use of the C standard library. This is very important of course, as the C standard library is an invaluable resource when writing real world programs.
- C++ has a library called the Standard Template Library.
- This standard library contains a number of templates that can be used while developing programs almost of any kind.
- It also includes many common data structures which are very useful like data lists, maps, data sets, etc. the standard library routines and its data structures are tailored to the specific needs of the programmer.
- Though standard library is no gold knife, still it does gives a great help in many programs for solving general purpose related problems. Many tasks like implementing a linked list in C take a lot of time.
- Though the compilation is fast but, who has got that much time to write those lengthy codes. That time you will feel the need for a better compiler which provides a shorter and effective code for implementing lists and other sorts of data structures in array form.

Even though C language was standardized long back in 1998, but till date we don’t have any good compilers for this language. It’s a very complex language and so requires a heavy compiler like itself to compile it. Another problem related to C compiling is that being a big and complex language, many few people have its correct knowledge of usage. A lot depends on the programmer also. If you are typing in the wrong code you are sure to get bad results.
Today also most of the programs are written in C. a need is felt to convert them to another programming language for better compilation. But the conversion is no good solution. Conversion of a C language program code is often ended up in rewriting almost the entire content of the program.

Programs written in C will always have 2 major problems. Firstly their code will be unusually lengthy and time consuming. Secondly, the program execution will be slower even though the compilation time is very less. The C program codes require more time to read, write and understand. C compiler being ineffective can crash any time. There’s a lack of high level routines in C compiler.