A Practitioner's Guide to Software Test Design by Lee Copeland

New and Classic Techniques Together in One Great Book
Randy Rice (rcs@telepath.com) , a software testing consultant, 02/13/2004

This is a great read on an important topic. Lee Copeland has done a super job in bringing together a diverse set of test techniques in a way that will make sense to testers of all experience levels. This book also brings many of the techniques we have used over the years, such as boundary value testing and equivalence classes, up to date with newer techniques such as pairwise testing and use cases for testing. It was interesting to read some of the quotes from Boris Beizer and other early testing authors. Some of those nuggets, such as the example of “Kiddie Pool vs. Real Pool” had a big impact on me years ago as I developed my understanding of what testing is about. Copeland achieves a nice level of coverage in this book, as he addresses black box and white box testing, as well as testing paradigms that shape the way someone may look at testing. The trade-offs between exploratory and scripted approaches are examined in particular. I really like the readability of this book, due in large part to the humor that Copeland sprinkles through the book just when you need a smile. Copeland also does an excellent job of thoroughly explaining by example how the various testing techniques are applied. He takes each technique step-by-step and breaks it down so that even a beginner can understand. I found the chapter devoted to bug taxonomies very helpful by providing the lists by Beizer, Caner, Binder, Whittaker and others in a single location. I often tell my students to “start a bug collection” to understand the defects most common in the software they test. This is a natural and effective starting point for process improvement. The bug taxonomy can give you a head start on your own bug collection. I can highly recommend this book to any tester. If you are looking for a self-study book in test planning, this is a great place to start!