Web Systems Acceptance Tests and Code Generation

In Extreme Programming (XP) [2], acceptance tests are used to prove that the application works as the customer wishes. The available test languages offer low level of abstraction and legibility, because they are based in languages like Visual Basic and XML. GUI capture and playback tools facilitate the creation of test cases, though they have many limitations to program and maintain the test cases [1]. Acceptance tests interact with the GUI (Graphical User Interface) of the system, simulating the actions of users and verifying the information content presented. In Web systems, for example, the GUI is composed of Web pages and its components, like frames, links and images. In that way, the information about the GUI structure and behavior of a system can be found and extracted from its acceptance test cases, making possible the generation of part of the GUI code. This paper presents a language and an environment to program Web Systems acceptance test cases. Code generators are presented to improve productivity and to motivate the XP practice of creation of these tests before the implementation of the proper system.