Automation has been long since considered as crucial to execution of software testing processes in practice. Academy and industry has presented a number of automated solutions to support different steps and goals of software testing. On one hand, automation can indeed improve execution of tasks that are repetitive and error-prone by manual execution. Moreover, widely used tools such as the JUnit framework have shown that we might be in right path to success. Nevertheless, so far, what do we know about the actual benefits and drawbacks of software testing automation? This talk discusses the general goals of software testing automation by addressing state-of-the-art, myths and reality.

Patrícia Duarte de Lima Machado is an Associate Professor in the Computing and Systems Department at Federal University of Campina Grande, Brazil, since 1995. She received her PhD Degree in Computer Science from the University of Edinburgh, UK, in 2001, Master Degree in Computer Science from the Federal University of Pernambuco, Brazil, in 1994. Her research interests include software testing, formal methods, mobile computing, component based software development and model-driven development. Since 2001, she has produced a number of contributions in the area of software testing, including research projects, publications, tools, supervising, national/international cooperation and teaching, particularly on conformance testing of real-time systems.

Maximiliano Cristiá is a professor, researcher and independent consultant in Software Engineering in Argentina since 2003. He has been involved in software engineering projects in the academia and industry. He has a PhD in Informatics from Aix-Marseille Université (France), holds a Master degree in Computer Science (Universidad de la República, Uruguay), and a degree in Mathematics (Universidad Nacional de Rosario, Argentina). His main professional and research interests are model-based testing, formal methods and help the software industry to produce zero-defect products.