Review By: Vivek Vaishampayan
01/04/2008This book is mainly useful as a standard textbook in curriculums that include software testing courses. The emphasis in most chapters is on building the competency of the software tester. Most chapters use the Common Body Of Knowledge (CBOK) for the Certified Software Tester (CSTE) designation offered by Software Certifications (http://www.SoftwareCertifications.org) and administered by Quality Assurance Institute (http://www.qaiusa.com/). This book is mainly targeted for CSTE preparation. Students aspiring for CSTE certification will buy this book as a standard textbook. I predict the shelflife of this book will be probably 9-12 months since the book hasn't been updated to keep up with latest technological changes.

There are lots of illustrations used throughout the book such as tables, flowcharts, and diagram etc. to explain the concepts, how to use tools, and how to do testing. Many testing concepts are described using theoretical approach. Test planning, test execution, test analysis, and test reporting are covered in excellent ways. The workbench concept and PDCA cycle are informative.

QA professionals might struggle to find the effectiveness of this book during actual implementation in real life testing assignments. The mapping from theory to practice is somewhat difficult, even after following all work benches described by the author. Many work papers are based on what the author has done in the past and typically provides a long list of things which seem quite outdated and redundant. This also makes the book bulky and boring, covering details which are now irrelevant. A few examples are related to the old technology of Mainframe processing, job controls, and procedural languages. A new emphasis, or outlook, on object-oriented technology and Web-based approaches is missing since the author is trying to adopt and/or advocate the same old PDCA concept even in agile environment and fast-paced projects. Some important concepts like RTM (Requirement Traceability Matrix), Test cases based on Use Cases, "lessons learned" or post-mortem analysis, are missing.

The author is knowledgeable and an experienced person in the IT industry. He is the founding member of QAI and has written many books. However, this book is mainly targeted as a standard textbook. Bill's writing style and presentation is geared towards preparing for the certification examination. Bill has done an excellent job in putting all the exam material in one book, which itself is a challenging task. The most interesting fact I find in the book is the overall coverage of so many things and introducing most testing concepts in such precise yet brief passages. I will strongly recommend the book to all CSTE candidates and this recommendation is based on my own success of CSTE certification after reading and studying this book.