Yesterday, I was talking to my current team about deleting some automated tests. It was like, "oh yeah, I really am a test automation badass" and ppl were asking me after how I know which tests to delete, so here's my quick thread about it...
So, how do I know about this? I used to care for a large test suite at Mozilla and care for a selenium grid back in the day when selenium grid was still kinda new. I've also worked at companies that had lots of automated tests like Atlassian and Pivotal so, yes, I have opinions
When do you know you need to delete tests? My main metric is, how long does it take the test suite to run when you finish your feature...like ALL the tests you need to run before pushing. Kent Beck said 10 minutes a long time ago in XP Explained, but that was pre-smartphone so...
I actually think it's a lot less, but ok, 10 minutes. Mainly, I want people to feel like running the tests. If they take too long to run, I don't care how much your team cares about testing, they will start to feel impatient towards the tests..this is NOT what you want, so...
What to delete? I always go for deleting webdriver tests first because they are most expensive. Which webdriver tests? Log-in, log-out always goes first. You are gonna know if that fails and it's probably tested in lots of other areas. Then...
I start looking at which tests are most expensive to run...these are tests that are clicking on links, scrolling or anything taking a while. I ask, "is this tested elsewhere?" "Will I know in someother way that this is failing?" "What is this really testing?"
Most of the time there is something. These are just my ways of looking for the low-hanging fruit. It's important to read through your tests and have a sense of how expensive they are. There will likely be something you can delete. OTOH...
You will also uncover how and why your team is holding onto tests. These can be some deep discussions, so you might have to park deleting something and revisit it later or do more investigation. It's ok. Just remember, the tests are there to help your team, not to drag you down!
Even if you love testing and writing tests, they don't need to live forever. They are their own artifact. It's ok to delete tests! Fin ✅💖
