It may surprise you to learn that Microsoft employs as many software testers as developers. Less surprising is the emphasis the company places on the testing discipline—and its role in managing quality across a diverse, 150+ product portfolio. This book—written by three of Microsoft’s most prominent test professionals—shares the best practices, tools, and systems used by the company’s 9,000-strong corps of testers. Learn how your colleagues at Microsoft design and manage testing, their approach to training and career development, and what challenges they see ahead. Most important, you’ll get practical insights you can apply for better results in your organization. Discover how to: Design effective tests and run them throughout the product lifecycle Minimize cost and risk with functional tests, and know when to apply structural techniques Measure code complexity to identify bugs and potential maintenance issues Use models to generate test cases, surface unexpected application behavior, and manage risk Know when to employ automated tests, design them for long-term use, and plug into an automation infrastructure Review the hallmarks of great testers—and the tools they use to run tests, probe systems, and track progress efficiently Explore the challenges of testing services vs. shrink-wrapped software

2012 Jolt Award finalist! Pioneering the Future of Software Test Do you need to get it right, too? Then, learn from Google. Legendary testing expert James Whittaker, until recently a Google testing leader, and two top Google experts reveal exactly how Google tests software, offering brand-new best practices you can use even if you’re not quite Google’s size...yet! Breakthrough Techniques You Can Actually Use Discover 100% practical, amazingly scalable techniques for analyzing risk and planning tests...thinking like real users...implementing exploratory, black box, white box, and acceptance testing...getting usable feedback...tracking issues...choosing and creating tools...testing “Docs & Mocks,” interfaces, classes, modules, libraries, binaries, services, and infrastructure...reviewing code and refactoring...using test hooks, presubmit scripts, queues, continuous builds, and more. With these techniques, you can transform testing from a bottleneck into an accelerator–and make your whole organization more productive!

Use Visual Studio 2010’s Breakthrough Testing Tools to Improve Quality Throughout the Entire Software Lifecycle Together, Visual Studio 2010 Ultimate, Visual Studio Test Professional 2010, Lab Management 2010, and Team Foundation Server offer Microsoft developers the most sophisticated, well-integrated testing solution they’ve ever had. Now, Microsoft MVP and VS testing guru Jeff Levinson shows exactly how to use Microsoft’s new tools to save time, reduce costs, and improve quality throughout the entire development lifecycle. Jeff demonstrates how Microsoft’s new tools can help you finally overcome long-standing communication, coordination, and management challenges. You’ll discover how to perform first-rate functional testing; quickly create and execute tests and record the results with log files and video; and create bugs directly from tests, ensuring reproducibility and eliminating wasted time. Levinson offers in-depth coverage of Microsoft’s powerful new testing metrics, helping you ensure traceability all the way from requirements through finished software. Coverage includes • Planning your tests using Microsoft Test Manager (MTM) • Creating test settings, structuring test cases, and managing the testing process • Executing manual tests with Microsoft Test Manager and Test Runner • Filing and resolving bugs, and customizing your bug reporting process • Automating test cases and linking automated tests with requirements • Executing automated test cases through both Visual Studio and Microsoft Test Manager • Integrating automated testing into the build process • Using Microsoft’s Lab Management virtualization platform to test applications, snapshot environments, and reproduce bugs • Implementing detailed metrics for evaluating quality and identifying improvements Whether you’re a developer, tester, manager, or analyst, this book can help you significantly improve the way you work and the results you deliver—both as an individual right now, and as a team member throughout your entire project.

With the clarity and precision intrinsic to the Test-Driven Development (TDD) process itself, experts James Newkirk and Alexei Vorontsov demonstrate how to implement TDD principles and practices to drive lean, efficient coding—and better design. The best way to understand TDD is to see it in action, and Newkirk and Vorontsov walk step by step through TDD and refactoring in an n-tier, .NET-connected solution. And, as members of the development team for NUnit, a leading unit-testing framework for Microsoft .NET, the authors can offer matchless insights on testing in this environment—ultimately making their expertise your own. Test first—and drive ambiguity out of the development process: Document your code with tests, rather than paper Use test lists to generate explicit requirements and completion criteria Refactor—and improve the design of existing code Alternate programmer tests with customer tests Change how you build UI code—a thin layer on top of rigorously tested code Use tests to make small, incremental changes—and minimize the debugging process Deliver software that’s verifiable, reliable, and robust

How to Find and Fix the Killer Software Bugs that Evade Conventional Testing In Exploratory Software Testing, renowned software testing expert James Whittaker reveals the real causes of today’s most serious, well-hidden software bugs--and introduces powerful new “exploratory” techniques for finding and correcting them. Drawing on nearly two decades of experience working at the cutting edge of testing with Google, Microsoft, and other top software organizations, Whittaker introduces innovative new processes for manual testing that are repeatable, prescriptive, teachable, and extremely effective. Whittaker defines both in-the-small techniques for individual testers and in-the-large techniques to supercharge test teams. He also introduces a hybrid strategy for injecting exploratory concepts into traditional scripted testing. You’ll learn when to use each, and how to use them all successfully. Concise, entertaining, and actionable, this book introduces robust techniques that have been used extensively by real testers on shipping software, illuminating their actual experiences with these techniques, and the results they’ve achieved. Writing for testers, QA specialists, developers, program managers, and architects alike, Whittaker answers crucial questions such as: • Why do some bugs remain invisible to automated testing--and how can I uncover them? • What techniques will help me consistently discover and eliminate “show stopper” bugs? • How do I make manual testing more effective--and less boring and unpleasant? • What’s the most effective high-level test strategy for each project? • Which inputs should I test when I can’t test them all? • Which test cases will provide the best feature coverage? • How can I get better results by combining exploratory testing with traditional script or scenario-based testing? • How do I reflect feedback from the development process, such as code changes?

Software Engineering with Microsoft Visual Studio Team System is written for any software team that is considering running a software project using Visual Studio Team System (VSTS), or evaluating modern software development practices for its use. It is about the value-up paradigm of software development, which forms the basis of VSTS: its guiding ideas, why they are presented in certain ways, and how they fit into the process of managing the software lifecycle. This book is the next best thing to having an onsite coach who can lead the team through a consistent set of processes. Sam Guckenheimer has been the chief customer advocate for VSTS, responsible for its end-to-end external design. He has written this book as a framework for thinking about software projects in a way that can be directly tooled by VSTS. It presents essential theory and practical examples to describe a realistic process for IT projects. Readers will learn what they need to know to get started with VSTS, including The role of the value-up paradigm (versus work-down) in the software development lifecycle, and the meanings and importance of “flow” The use of MSF for Agile Software Development and MSF for CMMI Process Improvement Work items for planning and managing backlog in VSTS Multidimensional, daily metrics to maintain project flow and enable estimation Creating requirements using personas and scenarios Project management with iterations, trustworthy transparency, and friction-free metrics Architectural design using a value-up view, service-oriented architecture, constraints, and qualities of service Development with unit tests, code coverage, profiling, and build automation Testing for customer value with scenarios, qualities of service, configurations, data, exploration, and metrics Effective bug reporting and bug assessment Troubleshooting a project: recognizing and correcting common pitfalls and antipatterns This is a book that any team using or considering VSTS should read.

"If you'd like a glimpse at how the next generation is going to program, this book is a good place to start." —Gregory V. Wilson, Dr. Dobbs Journal (October 2004) Build Your Own Automated Software Testing Tool Whatever its claims, commercially available testing software is not automatic. Configuring it to test your product is almost as time-consuming and error-prone as purely manual testing. There is an alternative that makes both engineering and economic sense: building your own, truly automatic tool. Inside, you'll learn a repeatable, step-by-step approach, suitable for virtually any development environment. Code-intensive examples support the book's instruction, which includes these key topics: Conducting active software testing without capture/replay Generating a script to test all members of one class without reverse-engineering Using XML to store previously designed testing cases Automatically generating testing data Combining Reflection and CodeDom to write test scripts focused on high-risk areas Generating test scripts from external data sources Using real and complete objects for integration testing Modifying your tool to test third-party software components Testing your testing tool Effective Software Test Automation goes well beyond the building of your own testing tool: it also provides expert guidance on deploying it in ways that let you reap the greatest benefits: earlier detection of coding errors, a smoother, swifter development process, and final software that is as bug-free as possible. Written for programmers, testers, designers, and managers, it will improve the way your team works and the quality of its products.

This long-awaited revision of a bestseller provides a practical discussion of the nature and aims of software testing. You'll find the latest methodologies for the design of effective test cases, including information on psychological and economic principles, managerial aspects, test tools, high-order testing, code inspections, and debugging. Accessible, comprehensive, and always practical, this edition provides the key information you need to test successfully, whether a novice or a working programmer. Buy your copy today and end up with fewer bugs tomorrow.

Extensively class-tested, this textbook takes an innovative approach to software testing: it defines testing as the process of applying a few well-defined, general-purpose test criteria to a structure or model of the software. It incorporates the latest innovations in testing, including techniques to test modern types of software such as OO, web applications, and embedded software. The book contains numerous examples throughout. An instructor's solution manual, PowerPoint slides, sample syllabi, additional examples and updates, testing tools for students, and example software programs in Java are available on an extensive website.

Software testing can be regarded as an art, a craft, and a science. The practical, step-by-step approach presented in this book provides a bridge between these different viewpoints. A single worked example runs throughout, with consistent use of test automation. Each testing technique is introduced in the context of this example, helping students see its strengths and weaknesses. The technique is then explained in more detail, providing a deeper understanding of underlying principles. Finally the limitations of each technique are demonstrated by inserting faults, giving learners concrete examples of when each technique succeeds or fails in finding faults. Coverage includes black-box testing, white-box testing, random testing, unit testing, object-oriented testing, and application testing. The authors also emphasise the process of applying the techniques, covering the steps of analysis, test design, test implementation, and interpretation of results. The book's web site has programming exercises and Java source code for all examples.