Java Testing and Design: From Unit Testing to Automated Web Tests

by Frank Cohen

Shows how to understand what application you want to write, what strategies are likely to get you there, and then how to measure your level of success. This book teaches you a method to build... This description may be from another edition of this product.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0131421891
• ISBN13: 9780131421899
• Release Date: January 2004
• Publisher: Prentice Hall PTR
• Length: 489 Pages
• Weight: 1.65 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.7" x 7.1" x 9.3"

Customer Reviews

SOA Scalability and Performance Testing In A Box

I love a good technical book. Over the years I've bought a lot of them. Some have been the kind of book that is basically a detailed reference guide to a very specific topic. Others are an introduction to a new technology or a new way of doing something. Java Testing and Design (JTD) covers the high level issues of testing services and also gives you code-level examples. The goal of the book is to make this case: Delivering service excellence requires a new level of cooperation between software developers, QA technicians, and IT managers. JTD defines services as any software application that is accessible over a routed network using open protocols. JTD is a book about testing services, including Web applications, Service Oriented Applications, and n-tier applications. JTD begins with testing methodology, covers protocols and architecture decisions, and delivers code-level examples in TestMaker scripts. TestMaker is a framework and utility that is composed of a number of open-source libraries and tools. The book uses TestMaker to show you by example how to accomplish testing tasks. The examples can easily be applied to other testing tools, languages and platforms. For example, chapter 7 talks about the move developers made from HTTP applications through XML-RPC and into SOAP-based Web Services. The chapter shows the reasons why XML-RPC is cool and appropriate applications for XML-RPC. It then covers the things that typically go wrong with XML-RPC to give you some thoughts on how to test an XML-RPC application. The chapter then presents a TestMaker script showing how to make an XML-RPC call. TestMaker uses the Apache XML-RPC library. So, the example script shows by example how Apache XML-RPC could be used in a Java application too. The book breaks down into three parts: JTD starts with an understanding of the reasons the existing testing methodologies fail to deliver excellent services. This part describes a test methodology and several techniques for measuring service excellence. The second part introduces the technologies used to deliver scalable and well performing services, make the case for where they are appropriately used, talks about the problems, and then shows a how-to example in code. The third part of JTD shows three case studies of how the methodology is applied to solving enterprise scalability, regression, functionality, and quality-of-service problems in information services. I recommend Java Testing and Design to anyone needing to understand the scalability and performance characteristics of SOA. -Walk

Highly recommended for advanced developers and IT managers

It is really rare book with amazing combination of theoretical insight and practical experience. No doubts that his entire recommendations author found not in books, but as result of numerous successful projects he participated in. Author teaches not only how to use one particular product, doesn't follow some primer book example, but shares with reader his insight. Careful reader may save a lot of money and time, by avoiding buying of expensive products with limited feature, but rather starting creation of efficient and robust testing scripts on basis of fruits given by open source community.

Lot of controvery here, this is an awesome book!

Boy! For a book on testing for geeks the reader reviews show there's some controvery here.Ok, so here is what I loved about this book: It shows the geeks a way to deliver SOA (meaning J2EE apps, .NET apps, Web sites, Web Services, Web applications, and anything else that uses a network) that runs 24x7 and won't fall over when a lot of users show up all at once.The book's central argument is that businesses operating SOA need to have the cooperation of coders, QA, and network managers to really be successful.So do I recommend this book to a hard core J2EE engineer? Yes, because the QA geek that tests the J2EE engineer's code doesn't code in Java. They need something just as powerful but not as complex as Java. The book gives us a dozen reasons why the Jython scripting language is an ideal medium between the J2EE engineer and the QA geek. For example, the unit tests the J2EE engineer writes can be reused as scalability and load tests by QA. The same goes for network managers who use the unit tests as service monitors. All that has been missing is a common framework coders and QA can use! Very cool stuff.Why else did I like this book... Because after reading the book my boss finally understands why testing is important for the services we are deploying. He uses this book to explain to his bosses how we should be going about testing our services: The book says everything should be tested against the user's goals and it shows how to do it. That's awesome!I very much liked that all of the example scenarios presented in the book come with real, live, working test code. And if I'm not happy with using TestMaker (which is free! duh!) I can take the examples to any of the other test utilities out there.Java Testing and Design is an awesome book.

Improve your web apps

Despite the curious title, this book focuses on the value that well planned and executed testing brings to a project. The subtitle "From Unit Testing to Automated Web Tests" does the book more justice, but still there is a lot more here.In the first part of the book, the author focuses on a philosophy of testing. This includes a variety of testing protocols (i.e. unit testing, functional testing, performance testing), how they should be executed, and how to evaluate the results. He introduces a web rubric to use in the assessment of testing results. This gives the development staff an objective way to determine where to focus their corrective efforts. Testmaker, a toolset for intelligent test agents, is introduced. Testmaker is an open source product that can be used to automate much of the testing process and to evaluate the results. The author's concept of user archetypes for building the intelligent test agents is very effective.In the second part of the book, the author brings the concepts of the first part to address some specific technologies like http/html, SOAP, and integrating with .Net web services. In each section, the author builds a little insight into the specific technology and addresses testing challenges that one may face. Finally, he addresses the big issue of turning these test results into actionable items. The final section of the book focuses on case studies of the successful implementation of the principles and toolset as described in the book.This book has convinced me that automated testing can be an invaluable asset to a development project. It should be on your bookshelf along with "User Interface Design for Programmers" by Spolsky for practical advice on application development.

Excellent guide to testing any Web application

This book is an excellent guide to testing web applications and web services. I expect it will benefit all readers, from the software developers or QA tech just getting started, through to the experienced coders and testers.Java Testing and Design comes in three parts. The first part describes the things we developers, QA techs and IT folks deal with everyday - tough schedules, user needs, messed up management and test methodologies past and present. All this is shown being applied to building Web applications. The second part takes on the nuts-and-bolts aspect of building networked applications, including different connectivity methods (from http through XML and SOAP), from functional unit tests to testing sequences of messages and session data. It puts a whole new light on testing from the user's perspective using a new method called user archetypes - basically test scripts that mimic a user's behavior. It's a cool technique to make testing a lot more simpler.The chapters describe the issues and the common areas where things go wrong. Then each chapter provides a detailed description of testing using the TestMaker free open-source test tool.The third part of the book covers some case studies of tests that Frank Cohen had to devise. These include tests for scalability and throughput of SOAP-based Web Services. He also uncovers a huge scalability problem with Web Services that every Service Oriented Architecture (SOA) developer should know about. RPC-based Web Services do not scale and the book shows why and how anyone can find the results.The book's title is a little weird since the book has little to do with Java itself. You could be a .NET developer and get just as much from the book. I would have liked to see more coverage of other test tools but since TestMaker is free and open source that's no problem for me.Java Testing and Design provides excellent insights into testing and gives you tools and explanations for performing tests of Web-enabled applications. I recommend this book highly.