Test Automation Term: Programmatic Testing - One End Of The Spectrum

Programmatic Testing:  A style of software testing where tests are executed without human interaction.

When I say "this test can be automated", I don't mean a computer can magically replace a sapient process to create a useful test.  All test design and methodology is devised using a sapient processes (obviously).  However, testcase generation, data generation, test execution, results analysis, etc, can often be done without human interaction.  This has been described using terms like: "Automated Testing, "Test Automation", etc.  Among some of the more vocal people in the testing community, these terms are considered confusing,  inaccurate, harmful, or just a cover up for what is actually a non-scripted test

Automated and Manual Testing are not mutually exclusive.  Rather, they are at either end of a continuum.  A test isn't "automated" or "manual".  It falls somewhere on that continuum.  Each step of the process has some mixture of the elements.

I have also heard the term: "Computer Assisted Testing".  I don't like this term because it tries to place a name on the entire testing process.  I am not referring to the entire process, so this becomes confusing talk to me.  I am referring to a style of test execution.

Therefore, to clear up ambiguity of terminology, I now refer to "Automation" as "Programmatic Testing".  This refers to a style of test execution where tests are executed in a non-interactive manner.

I you have a tool, a test framework, a software library, a program/script, functions for checking conditions, or a mechanism for reporting errors and stats, then you are doing a form of programmatic testing.