Review By: Vivek Vaishampayan
07/11/2008

The precise objective of this book is to present an open source view of software testing for all types of Java applications, with a special emphasis on J2EE testing. The book advocates TestNG, which is a testing framework inspired from JUnit/NUnit. TestNG is designed to cover all categories of tests: unit, functional, end-to-end, integration, etc. The book covers all aspects of a pragmatic approach to latest software engineering testing in Java, leveraging the most current and recognized best practices.

The authors have presented this subject matter in an elaborate, yet organized, fashion. The book encompasses the most essential testing elements of Java and J2EE technology, design patterns, and the agile process. This book provides the readers with a firm understanding of how to test any Java code- and J2EE-based Web applications.

Overall the book is an excellent source of information. The subject matter is organized in an easy to follow manner, and the presentation of Java and J2EE technology from a testing perspective is well handled.

Cédric Beust TestNG's creator and leading Java developer Hani Suleiman present powerful, flexible testing patterns that will work with virtually any testing tool, framework, or language. They show how to leverage key Java platform improvements designed to facilitate effective testing, such as dependency injection and mock objects. They also thoroughly introduce TestNG, demonstrating how it overcomes the limitations of older frameworks and enables new techniques, making it far easier to test today's complex software systems.

With abundance of programmers who can write Java code, the most challenging part becomes effectively testing Java applications. An even broader quest remains for designing applications and components for testability. All Java readers of this book will definitely learn this most valuable--design for testability--lesson from this book. The practical techniques presented in this book will help any Java developer become a better tester, and in turn, to be an even better software engineer. The TestNG advanced concepts explained in this book are targeted to assist Java developers who wish to take further steps to perform Next Generation Testing--enabling them to accomplish not only effective and efficient unit tests but also acceptance, functional, and integration tests. This book uses TestNG for its code samples; however, a lot of principles can be easily ported/adapted to the latest version on JUnit, Eclipse, or even Net Beans.

The authors have effectively demonstrated some of the best practices in testing all kinds of Java code. After reading this book, Java readers will have learned new Next Generation techniques for testing any Java code and will be able to apply those right away.

Although the book can be used by QA testers, an extensive Java background is assumed of the reader. Therefore, this book is primarily for Java developers who want to test their code. It is written by Java people for Java professionals to test modern Java code. It also provides the plug-ins for Eclipse, Net Beans, IDEA, and Maven. This is a classic book every Java developer must read.