SilkTest Question 64: How to hide username and password information?

I believe every QA Engineer, with proven SilkTest experience, knows, that two completely new functions, Decrypt() and Encrypt(), were introduced in SilkTest 2006 Release 2. The functions allow encrypt passwords, so that they are not displayed in recorded test scripts or when playing back test scripts. It is obvious that passwords are kind of hidden, I mean if someone takes a look into 4test code of the latest test framework the passwords are hidden, but if you copy-paste them to your own script you can easily descramble the password.

One of the many solutions to resolve problem would be to have every tester save their username and password in for example Excel file on their local machine. All files should have the same name, but contents would be different for each tester. During developing data-driven SilkTest script make them look for the file and read username/password from there. This technique would hide password out of common 4test code.

SilkTest Question 63: Does Silk Test have any future?

Many test automating tools for functional testing like Silk Test haven't changed as much as development tools in the recent years. Where is integration with unit testing tools and source control tools? Where is cool keyword coloring and code refactoring to simplify program structure?

Let's take a look in biased opinions of one of the Borland employee posted not long ago:

I believe Borland is more dedicated to meeting QA tool users' (your) needs than any other "big" vendor in the QA automation market.

SilkTest is not going away. It is powerful, adaptable and proven. We will continue to "reward" loyal customers by protecting their investment with expanded functionality. We've released two major (SilkTest 8, SilkTest 2006) and at least 3 minor versions of SilkTest since the acquisition of Segue. Rest assured that another major release is forthcoming (no dates can be shared publicly at this time).

4Test is not going away. It is easy to learn, useful and provides extremely robust, easily maintainable test scripts. Other test tool vendors have introduced "new" products (and charged for them) at the cost of alienating users of their "old" products. I believe this is a terrible way to treat loyal users.

Customers want scripting in common languages --- we hear that loud and clear.

SilkTest is arguably the most technically powerful functional automation tool in the market (I knew this prior to my joining Borland - but, of course, I'm biased)

Borland has consolidated development to 4 main dev labs - 1 dedicated soley to Silk products - to reduce costs and maximize efficiency (using our own ALM principles). Segue had segregated development teams that did not facilitate good integration, innovation or agile development. We now have a large, dedicated and experienced team on SilkTest co-located with all the other Silk development, and we have a full and exciting roadmap!

Borland technical support is a marked improvement over Segue support of the past (from reputation and customer feedback, not personal knowledge).

I'm hoping that I would be able to see all above implemented in the near future. And I hope that it will be true. At least may be Borland would update SilkTest user's guide and perhaps starts to print SilkTest books ...