A Practitioner's Guide to Software Test Design
by Lee Copeland
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Book Summary Information
Author: Lee CopelandEdition: Hardcover
Audio: English (Unknown); English (Original Language); English (Published)
Published: 2004-01
ISBN: 158053791X
Number of pages: 300
Publisher: Artech House
Book Reviews of A Practitioner's Guide to Software Test Design
Book Review: Excellent Primer On Test Case Design
Summary: 5 Stars
I have been a manager in my company's testing organization for about four months after having worked in software development for the past 13 years. While I do not directly write or execute test cases, I thought this was an important topic for me to understand better. As a result I bought Lee Copeland's A Practitioner's Guide to Software Test Design, and I am very happy with this book.
Like most managers I don't have hours on end to dedicate to reading. However, this book is a very easy read. I actually thought I had gotten something too basic because the chapters on equivalence class partitioning and boundary values were extremely simple. Yet Copeland called out that testers and developers have probably used these techniques intuitively without formally knowing the official techniques. Things got much more interesting in chapters 5-11 as Copeland covered techniques such as pairwise testing, domain analysis testing, and control flow testing. My favorite chapter was on pairwise testing because he listed different online resources for orthogonal arrays and pairwise testing. I was able to download and run James Bach's tool generate test cases using a pairwise algorithm. I was also interested in his reference to the AT&T research site dedicated to orthogonal arrays. These techniques have complex mathematical principles at their foundation, but Copeland does a good job of focusing on how to use them rather than getting into the motivation and theory behind them.
Sections III and IV are more process focused than specifically related to test case design, but these are useful for helping testers put the techniques in context to their daily work. There are two case studies included in the appendices, but I didn't find it necessary to refer to them in order to get what I needed out of this book. The chapters and summaries contain sufficient information for working through the vast majority of the exercises without referring to the case studies.
Overall, this is a very good book on the fundamentals of test case design. Copeland has done a great job of balancing substance with accessibility. For fun each chapter begins with a selection of a "bad writing" contest. While these have nothing to do with the material, it keeps his book from being a dry, boring, and ponderous work to read. I recommend this to anyone who wants to build their knowledge of test case design.
Overall: A
Summary of A Practitioner's Guide to Software Test Design
A comprehensive, up-to-date and practical introduction to software test design. This book presents all the important test design techniques in a single place and in a consistent and easy-to-digest format. An immediately useful handbook for test engineers, developers, quality assurance professionals and requirements and systems analysts, it enables you to: choose the best test case design; find software defects in less time and with fewer resources; and develop optimal strategies that help reduce the likelihood of costly errors. It also assists you in estimating the effort, time and cost of good testing. Numerous case studies and examples of software testing techniques are included, helping you to fully understand the practical applications of these techniques. From well-established techniques such as equivalence classes, boundary value analysis, decision tables and state-transition diagrams, to new techniques like use case testing, pairwise testing and exploratory testing, the book is a usful resource for testing professionals seeking to improve their skills and a handy reference for college-level courses in software test design.Design Tools & Techniques Books
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