13 January, 2010

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

12 comments:

  1. "At the end of 2 months, I gave up. I gave up reading not just this book, but my reading habit itself. "

    How sad. Glad to hear that you have regained your reading habit.

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  2. A couple of my friends suggested that this is a book mostly for freshers and not targeted towards experienced testers.

    Every one of us are freshers for every next moment. But experienced in forgetting and remembering the earlier moments.

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  3. I completely agree. Lessons Learned in Software Testing is a great book which is full of advice and ideas that every tester should have at their disposal. I really like the fact that you can just dip in and read a few sections with out the overhead of reading the whole book from cover to cover. It's also a great source of insipration for software testing blog posts!

    William Echlin
    SoftwareTesting.net

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  4. Hi Parimala,

    Thanks for the reminder - lessons learned is a must have and I was just flicking through it again :)

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  5. @Joe
    Thank You Joe.

    Anonymous
    Every one of us are freshers for every next moment


    This is so true of learners whom I would call 'eternal learners'. I often wonder why some people have to use anonymous names to comment. Do you have an answer?


    @William Echlin
    It's also a great source of insipration for software testing blog posts!


    Thank you for pointing me to SoftwareTesting.net. Its high time, I explore BB Test Assitant.

    @Brian
    Thanks for the reminder - lessons learned is a must have and I was just flicking through it again :)


    You are right Brian. The 293 heuristics in the book transformed my mind into a trance for the next few days. It is a good source to look back to when stuck with testing problems.

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  6. Hi Parimala, thanks for pointing me towards Anuj's blog post. I have lately started reading a bit, but this post has motivated me further to read regularly. Thanks :)

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  8. Very knowledge post. Here I see sound knowledge of software testing.

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  9. This website is probably the most I appreciated it a lot

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  10. Leassons learned in Software testing is a book suggested to me by Pradeep Soundarrajan,Moolya.com

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  11. Hi...Parimala garu

    i have just red about yopur article about lessons learned in software testing..i want to buy this book..may i know where can i get this book?

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  12. hi parimala,
    I found your site when i am searching regarding software testing.

    All posts are More informative, explained very clearly it is very helpful... thanQ very much for good posts.

    ReplyDelete