QTP allows you to use what the tool calls Descriptive Programming (DP) as a way to write your automated test logic. This is really nothing more than a way of referencing objects, similar to the recognition method path (object strings) in Rational Robot, the GUI map strings of WinRunner, the tags and locators in SilkTest, or the selectors in Selenium. This style of object recognition is often put in opposition to another form that QTP allows you to do, which is store strings in the Object Repository (OR).

So which one should you use: DP or OR? Does it really make a difference? Are there advantages to one over the other? Can you use both? Should you? I’ll talk about all this a little here.