Explain FitNesse testing tool? What are principles of Fitnesse?

- FitNesse is an automated testing tool that has been developed to serve as a wiki and a web server for the development of software systems and applications. 

- This testing tool is entirely based up on the frame work for integrated testing that has been developed by Ward Cunningham. 

- It has been designed to support acceptance testing more than unit testing. 

- It comes with the feature of facilitating the description of the system functions in detail.

- With FitNesse testing tool, the users using a developed system can enter the input when it has been specially formatted i.e., non – programmers are able to access this format. 

- FitNesse tool interprets this input and automatically creates all the tests. 

- The system then execute these tests and returns the output to the users. 

- The main advantage of following this approach is that a very fast feedback can be obtained from the users. 

- Support in the form of classes called ‘fixtures’ is provided by the developer of the SUT i.e., system under testing. 

- The credit of writing the code for the fitNesse tool goes to Robert C. Martin and his colleagues in java language. 

- Since the program was developed in java, therefore initially it supported only java but now over the time it has got versions in a number of languages such as Python, C++, Delphi, ruby, C# and so on. 

Principles of FitNesse Testing Tool

This software works on certain principles which we shall discuss now:

FitNesse as a testing method: 

- Originally, it was designed as an interface using the fit frame work and it proved to be highly usable. 

- As such it is known to support the regression tests and black box acceptance tests in an agile style.

- This style of testing involves all the functional testers working in collaboration with the software developers in a software development project in an effort of developing a testing suite. 

- FitNesse testing revolves around the notion of black box testing.

- This involves considering the system to be a black box and testing it in the terms of the output that is automatically generated by the tool in accordance with the given inputs. 

- The responsibility of the functional tester is to design tests in a sense of functionality and expressing the same in the fitNesse tool. 

- On the other hand, the responsibility of the software developer is to connect the tool to the SUT so that tests can be executed and the actual output can be compared to the expected one. 

- The idea that drives this tool is forcing the functional testers and software developers to come up with a common language for an improved collaboration which will eventually lead to an improved mutual understanding of the SUT.

Fitnesse as a testing tool:

- Fitnesse defines the tests as inputs and outputs coupled together. 

- These inputs and outputs coupled together are expressed as variations of a decision table. 

- It supports a number of variations that range from tables that execute queries to tables for literal decision and to tables that express the testing scripts. 

- A free form table is the most generic variation that the designers can interpret in any way they like. 

- However, some sort of table is always used to express the tests. 

- The primary focus of FitNesse is on the easy creation of the tests, thus allowing the testers to maintain a high quality for the tests rather focusing on how the tests are to be executed. 

- Three factors are involved in the creation of the tests through fitNesse:

a)   Easy creation of the tables.

b)   Easy translation of the tables in to calls to SUT.

c)   Maintaining flexibility in the documentation of the tests.