Running user interface, unit and integration tests suites
By Chris Mcmahon
The problem of long running tests
User Interface, (UI) tests and certain kinds of integration tests like SOAP or REST API, are different than unit tests in many ways. For one thing, they take a long time to run. For another thing, they test not only the code, but also the whole environment in which the tests run. Also, they are not coupled to the code itself. We can be working in the test suite without regard for what is happening in the code base; and we can work in the code base without regard for the state of the test suite; and we can run such tests any time, as long as the underlying application has passed all its unit tests and is known to be in good shape.
The best approach I know to running a test suite that takes a long time to run is to do so inside an infinite loop: check out the latest tests; run them; get the test results and publish them; and then do the cycle over again, 24 hours a day, 7 days a week.
