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Title: Perl Testing: A Developer's Notebook (Developers Notebook)
ISBN: 0596100922
Author:
Ian Langworth
chromatic
Publicate Date: 2005-07-14
Publish: 2005-07-14
List Price: $29.95
Average Customer Rating: 4.0
Format: Paperback
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Amazon Lowest New Price: $15.00
Amazon Lowest Used Price: $10.98
Amazon Merchant Price: $21.86
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| Customer Review: |
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1: Good for narrow focus on perl and testing
This book is a decent, gap-filling, focused and useful volume on testing perl with the use of the perl Test modules.
About the book:
This is narrowly and tightly focused on testing, and use of the "Test::" series of objects and techniques in Perl. It covers basic setups and use, and then expands into using mock objects and the mock modules, which are not covered well, if at all, in other published texts, at least not from the standpoint of being a software tester (as opposed to a coder).
It also shows how to drive and mock-up database testing, and the various ways to go about testing web sites and back-ends with Perl. Finally, it covers Test::Class, which sets up Unit Testing, for those coming from a jUnit or nUnit angle. And it touches on testing from other aspects, such as testing libraries or interactive code.
Criticisms:
I have found that most of the O'Reilly "Notebooks" are priced too highly for their small amount of content, and the content is usually very minimal. This book is the one exception I've found in that series.
That being said, I still believe that it should be priced around $20, or perhaps $25. But $5-10 is a minor quibble considering this is the only book of its type (Perl testing).
Another valid criticism is that much of the information in this book can be found spread all over the internet in various places, and some parts can be found in other Perl books. That is true - but ultimately irrelevant. Disparate clusters of information without completeness or context is simply not very valuable when compared to a solid text focused on the subject matter.
Bottom Line:
It is a good compilation and reference for its subject, with a lot of information and context provided, which makes it superior to a collection of links and snippets here and there on the internet.
If you are a Perl coder or a tester, this is a handy book to have on your shelf.
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2: Good material, interesting format
I'm written a lot of perl code, and read a lot of evangelism about testing, but had never done much in the way of actual testing. I was exactly the person for whom this book was intended. And, it worked! The information about testing seems very strong, even authoritative, although since I know little else about it except for what I've learned from this book, I can't say that with my authority of my own. I've read lots of O'Reilly books, but this was my first in the Developer's Notebook series. I don't think it's revolutionary approach or anything, but it does work quite nicely, very focused on the practical, easy to apply immediately. All in all, a very nice book for the situation I was in. If you are in a similar situation, you'll probably like it too.
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3: A Very Useful Notebook
I've been working with perl for many years, but it seems that every time I pick up a new perl book, there's always something to learn. This Developer's Notebook on Testing was no exception.
I found several tips that helped me speed up my development and maintenance of test harnesses, as well as a number of new coding techniques (new to me, at least).
I consider this one of the best purchases I've made this year.
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4: Excellent book for discovering what Perl has to offer for testing code
Throughout history, many writers have written glowingly about the noble tester; the one who ensures that quality is part of every line of code. Children know the names of all of the famous testers, and have committed to memory their noble deeds. There are series of trading cards with the stats of every code tester that has ever lived. OK, perhaps this is all a load of humbug. Testing code is as highly thought of as documentation and debugging; we know we need to do it, but not many developers look forward to doing it. Its the rare developer that leaps from her chair and exclaims "I've just finished this code! Now I get to go test it!". Perl Testing: A Developer's Notebook (hereafter referred to as Perl Testing) may not make the process of debugging Perl code any more sexy or appealing, but it does have some excellent tips and strategies for tightening and streamlining the whole development process.
Perl Testing is part of O'Reilly's Developer's Notebook series of books. The idea is to get the ideas to press quickly, so the books are very concise, straight to the point, and include some themed features such as notes in the margins and "coffee stains". It makes for a more causal book, and stresses workable solutions rather than extreme formality. Sure, its a bit gimmicky, but the format works, and gets the information out quickly. Unfortunately it appears O'Reilly hasn't published any books in this series since Perl Testing so I hope they resurrect it for future topics.
Perl Testing is divided into nine chapters: Beginning Testing, Writing Tests, Managing Tests, Distributing Your Tests (and Code), Testing Untestable Code, Testing Databases, Testing Web Sites, Unit Testing with Test::Class, and Testing Everything Else. Each chapter has several subtopics, beginning with a prelude describing the testing situation, a "How do I do that" explanation, a "What just happened" discussion of the results, and a "What about..." exploration of other tips and tricks. This formality, even for such an informal book, makes for an easy-to-read style, and allows for the book to be used both as a tutorial and a reference for specific tests and testing situations. The code for the tests is both well written and clear, and the tests themselves are well thought out. One might accuse the authors of being too paranoid with their testing, but when bugs are out to get you, paranoia is just good thinking.
Perl Testing is a well-thought out book. I enjoyed leafing through the tests, and found myself thinking "I never thought of that" at some of the tests performed. Some might think that a whole book devoted to testing might be a bit extreme, but compared with other books who dedicate maybe a chapter or two for testing, having this subject covered at length is long overdue. The best summary for Perl Testing would be on the back cover: "You don't have to be a die-hard free and open source developer who lives, breathes, and dreams Perl to use Perl Testing: A Developer's Notebook. You just have to want to do your job better". This is an excellent resource for those looking to have their Perl programs truly sing, and demonstrate their resilience to the bugs and other foibles that plague software development. If you're even thinking of doing Perl programming, and care at all about the quality of your code, you owe yourself a read through Perl Testing: A Developer's Notebook.
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5: no nonsense introduction to the imporant stuff
I was initially not excited by O'Reilly's "Developer's Notebook" line of books. A lot of things conspired to make me turn up my nose. The design looked too gimmicky, the first few books turned me off (I don't remember specifics, but it was something like Excel Macros, Java Networking, and some other crap), and something inside me just felt like it was a dumb idea. I don't know why: I used to use similar references all the time, back when the Linux HOWTOs weren't useless. Anyway, when I heard that the new Perl testing book was going to be a notebook, I sort of groaned, but I still made sure I got it as soon as it was out and dug in.
Testing is Really Important. It serves as a secondary form of documentation, it makes it easier to add new features, it makes it easier to fix broken features, and it makes your replacement's job a lot easier when you win the lottery and retire early. It's a sad fact that plenty of people don't test their code, and that many of those who want to just don't know how. PTDN is a crash course for those people. It gets right to the point: page one says, roughly, "You know you should be testing, so here's how you do it. First, run the CPAN shell and install Test::Simple."
The rest of the book sticks to that no-crap attitude. "You want to do X. Here's what you do, and here's what happens when you do it." There isn't much of "why should I do this" or "how does this work on the inside" and that's just right. The book isn't there to show you how Devel::Cover works, or to explain the ideas behind agile development. It's there to help you do the job you know you need to do. It's like an old-style HOWTO extracted back one level of abstraction, or a set of nice fat articles on a series of related topics.
In fact, I think it's safe to say that a more traditional technical book on this subject might have been just the sort of overblown self-important thing that would've kept more people scared of and away from testing. Instead, it's a great crash course for the uninitiated.
For the initiated, I'm not sure how useful it would be. I must say that I didn't find many new or esoteric things in PTDN, but I don't think I'm its target audience. I already use and love coverage reports, I aim for full coverage on my code, and I like keeping my eye on the Test:: namespace for neat new tricks. If I were to hire a lackey, though, who wasn't already familiar with testing, this book would be high up on his must-read list. Knowing how to test your software is vitally important, and this book provides a very short path to that knowledge.
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