Book Review: Lessons Learned in Software Testing

About 5 years ago, I bought William Perry’s ‘Effective Methods for Software Testing’ book. I struggled for 2 months to get myself to read that book as it appeared to be too much of theory for me at the time (my first testing book). At the end of 2 months, I gave up. I gave up reading not just this book, but my reading habit itself.

In July 2009, I came across The Secrets of a Buccaneer Scholar by James Bach. I had just started blogging a few months before that and was following James’ blog for a while. There was a free offer to read his book within a timeline which I did. In five days, I had finished reading the book. I enjoyed reading very much after a long time. It was fun. I realized what I had lost in last 5 years.

Lessons Learned in Software Testing is a book that every tester should read to get their basics right. A couple of my friends suggested that this is a book mostly for freshers and not targeted towards experienced testers. I digressed and read the book. I was right. This is a great book meant for every tester.

This book depicts finer nuances of many testing challenges we face on a daily basis. Another good part of this book is that every chapter addresses a topic independent of other chapters. So you could choose to read few chapters earlier than others. If you are a tester, you must read this book.

I bought this book 2 months ago and often stared at it (placed on the dining table) cribbing that I did not have enough time to read it. Around the same time, I came across Anuj Magazine’s post about Reading Skills. I started reading for 30 minutes everyday and it has worked. Who knows, it may work for you too. All you need is to TRY.

Happy Reading,
Parimala Shankaraiah