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Rating: 
Summary: A classic that is still useful
Review: ......... this is probably not the first book that you would buy about software testing.However, the book is a classic and it deserves a place on a serious tester's bookshelf. Its examples are dated, I think its description of cause-effect graphing is incomprehensible, and its catalog of test types in the pages from 103 forward is sketchy. The book is valuable because its presentation of the basic issues is clear, concise, and persuasive. The discussion of equivalence classes and boundaries is remarkably clear. When we wrote Testing Computer Software, one of our goals was to handle this important topic as clearly and crisply as Myers. That was a challenge, and I'm not sure we succeeded. (Jorgensen's Software Testing: A Craftsman's Approach does a great job with this topic.) The discussion of bias (one of the issues in the psychology of testing) is also well done. In short, the first 103 pages of the book are some of the best writing in the field and have had a powerful influence on the writers who came later. Reading them in the original will often, I suspect, make subsequent presentations clearer and more meaningful. -- Cem Kaner (senior author: Testing Computer Software)
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Summary: Major Rewrite for 2nd ed.
Review: After 25 years of influencing test professionals this classic has been updated in the second edition to reflect contemporary testing challenges. Note that this review is for ISBN 0471469122. The first three chapters have kept their titles, but have been greatly expanded. For example, chapter 2 now includes black- and white-box testing overviews in addition to discussions on economics and testing principles. Chapter 3 now covers error types in addition to the original topics related to inspections and walkthroughs. Among the error types discussed are data reference and declaration, computation, comparison, control flow, and interface and I/O. Test case design has been expanded, and the chapters on module and high-order testing, and debugging have been given major facelifts and much wider coverage of techniques. The most significant changes, though, are chapters 8 and 9, Extreme Testing and Internet Testing, which truly reflect the extent of this book's update for the second edition. While the update is extensive, the part I personally liked the most is in Chapter 6, High-Order Testing. Consider these new test types, some of which were not even considered a part of testing back in 1979 when the first edition was published: facility, volume, stress, usability, security, performance, storage, configuration, compatibility/configuration/conversion, installability, reliability, recovery, serviceability, documentation, and procedure testing. This book belongs in every serious test professional's library. I'm retiring my copy of the first edition, a book that I've used since the early 1980s, to a special place in my library reserved for classic books. This second edition will be one of my primary testing references for some time to come.
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Summary: Still one of the very best books on software testing
Review: It is a classic. Many new testing books came out later, but frankely speaking, they were much worse this classic. Talking mistakes in the book, well, there are more mistakes in other books.
Rating:
Summary: Still one of the very best books on software testing
Review: Like all standard references, one can argue that the book is dated. In details perhaps yes, though my professional experience indicates that a 25 year old book still defines a higher level of software testing than the current state of the practice. The first 75 pages lay out the basic approaches to software testing and make for easy technical reading. More detailed graph theory follows and helps take the reader to a more rigorous approach. Please feel free to contact me for more detailed insght and opinions. Doug Claflin; President - Maritime Design
Rating:
Summary: A standard reference in software testing.
Review: Like all standard references, one can argue that the book is dated. In details perhaps yes, though my professional experience indicates that a 25 year old book still defines a higher level of software testing than the current state of the practice. The first 75 pages lay out the basic approaches to software testing and make for easy technical reading. More detailed graph theory follows and helps take the reader to a more rigorous approach. Please feel free to contact me for more detailed insght and opinions. Doug Claflin; President - Maritime Design
Rating: 
Summary: Flawed Classic
Review: This book was a noble effort for its time. It's a good starting place, especially since it's the one book on software testing that all the other authors seem to have read. And the chapter on test cases is pretty good. The book has some problems, though. First and most obviously, the book has a lard factor of about 60%. Short as it is, it needs a lot of pruning. (See Richard Lanham: Revising Prose.) Second, here and there it is just wrong. E.g., in its answers to the chapter 1 neophyte tester test, there are six, not three, permutations of three distinguishable objects. Third, he doesn't adequately sum up or review what he's said or done. Nowhere does he have a survey of what techniques one should use to generate all the test cases for his chapter 1 test. In chapter 2 he gives a horrible example of why you can't do exhaustive branch testing of a program with even fairly simple logic inside a loop, but he never comes back to say how you *should* test such a thing. Later on he talks about multiple decision/condition coverage, but he never explains how that differs from exhaustive branch testing. Also -- OK, it was a first try, so perhaps one shouldn't expect too much. But by now someone should be applying complexity theory to the problem. Given *this* program and *this* test coverage criterion, how many test cases will it take to test this program? And the coverage criteria should be stated in terms of the language definition, i.e. probably in terms of Backus-Naur form. Buy this book. Read it, with a red pencil in hand. But expect it to raise as many questions as it answers.
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Summary: "Must Have" Reference in Every Software Tester's Library
Review: This is by far the most concise and insightful book I've ever read about code level testing. It does not have all the nitty gritty details of every which method ever invented, nor does go into details about the paperwork. But the lists of principles and checklists are priceless. I would not recommend this book for beginners since it is hard for inexperienced testers to pick out the gems from the dated items. I agree with a previous review that stated that the first hundred or so pages are must reads. Don't be put off by the $ per page ratio. This book is worth every penny.
Rating:
Summary: "Must Have" Reference in Every Software Tester's Library
Review: This is by far the most concise and insightful book I've ever read about code level testing. It does not have all the nitty gritty details of every which method ever invented, nor does go into details about the paperwork. But the lists of principles and checklists are priceless. I would not recommend this book for beginners since it is hard for inexperienced testers to pick out the gems from the dated items. I agree with a previous review that stated that the first hundred or so pages are must reads. Don't be put off by the $ per page ratio. This book is worth every penny.
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Summary: Old book -- don't waste your money
Review: This small book is full of generalities. You can learn everything that is in this book by simply surfing the web.
Rating:
Summary: Old book -- don't waste your money
Review: This small book is full of generalities. You can learn everything that is in this book by simply surfing the web.
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