Subtitled "TestNG and Advanced Concepts" and written by the people behind TestNG, I picked up this book expecting to read a definitive and encyclopedic work on TestNG. However, the authors decry this view in the preface. This book takes 'testing' as its focus and uses TestNG to illustrate the examples. (Although it does really start off as  "a book about TestNG").

So prior to reading the book my experience of TestNG amounted to the following:

• read some of the tests people had written using TestNG at work
• amended some of the tests
• hacked about with the testng.xml file
• fixed some tests
• gone to the website to learn a little more about some of the annotations and the xml file
• Read, and used, the examples on the home page
• Run tests and suites within Eclipse
• Skimmed the documentation

So, as a beginner I felt like I could already 'use' TestNG, but I didn't really understand some of the concepts 'properly' like dataproviders - sure I could write one, but I didn't really 'get' all the nuances. Hence the reason for reading this book.

( amazon.co.uk | amazon.com )

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Whoop, Yeah, Time to get funky!

I had not visited the O'Reilly land of "Head Rush" or "Head First" prior to this book. I have seen this series hyped and been told by people that "these books are great!"

And maybe the people saying that really believed it.

amazon.co.uk | amazon.com

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This book only has 120 or so pages and has the purpose of introducing the reader to JMeter. I haven't found the online documentation for JMeter an easy read - mainly because I could not find a nice easy to print or flip through pdf version. The online document serves a reference rather than a hand holding purpose.  Hence the need for this book.

amazon.co.uk | amazon.com

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I avoided using JQuery in my test pack for as long as I could, to try and learn a little about JavaScript the hard way. But I just could not get my button clicking test working cross browser. But clever JavaScript ninjas invented libraries like JQuery to help with exactly that type of problem so...

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The Ajax world moves really quickly, and has moved on a lot since the publication of this book, so much so that it could really do with a new edition. Fortunately, with the sub title "A Web 2.0 Primer", we should expect an overview, and in some ways it doesn't matter that we don't get the most up to date information.

[amazon.co.uk]

[amazon.com]

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In the foreword Robert Martin tells us that other patterns exist for preventing bad code, and this this book helps us reverse the rot, to "...turn systems that gradually degrade into systems that gradually improve."

Since the provided definition of "Legacy code" describes "code without tests", you can apply the approaches presented at any point in a project where you discover that the code does not have tests. And depending on the level of 'rot' you can pick and choose from the various techniques presented.

[amazon.com][amazon.co.uk]

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Manning Publications have a competition to win some free e-books.

Manning say they will give away 2 free e-books every day until 30th April.

Do you feel lucky?

[amazon.com][amazon.co.uk]

' "Stop Debugging. Write a test instead" and here's how'. That seems to sum up the book. Wether you use TDD or not, JUnit Recipes helps you get more out of JUnit - perhaps it will help you stave off a move to TestNG?

Contents include 130+ 'solutions' for common tasks. If you check out the contents page then you can see what the authors cover.

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When the author, Brian Marick, describes his own book as "somewhat dated...written in a less spritely manner than I'd use today... this is not how I do things today", that doesn't really add up to a particularly motivating sales pitch for the book.

My copy has the appearance of "printed on demand" - which has resulted in a slightly wonky copy, but at least the book remains in print.

I think it that anyone reading the book will see how Brian ended up as one of the signatories of the Agile Manifesto. I found that I read the approach, that Brian outlines for Test Requirements as mirroring the approach I use when writing test ideas and analysing Agile stories. I believe that much of the text could find ready application to people working with Agile Stories - but I think the reader will get bogged down by the examples on first reading.

[amazon.com][amazon.co.uk]

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Now I've panned an Elfriede Dustin book before and then enjoyed another one. So thus far I have a 50/50 success rate so I pulled Effective Software Testing from the shelf, curious as to how I would react.

[amazon.com][amazon.co.uk]

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