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Successful software depends as much on scrupulous testing as it does on solid architecture or elegant code. But testing is not a routine process, it's a constant exploration of methods and an evolution of good ideas. Beautiful Testing offers 23 essays from 27 leading testers and developers that illustrate the qualities and techniques that make testing an art. Through personal anecdotes, you'll learn how each of these professionals developed beautiful ways of testing a wide range of products -- valuable knowledge that you can apply to your own projects. Here's a sample of what you'll find inside: Microsoft's Alan Page knows a lot about large-scale test automation, and shares some of his secrets on how to make it beautiful Scott Barber explains why performance testing needs to be a collaborative process, rather than simply an exercise in measuring speed Karen Johnson describes how her professional experience intersected her personal life while testing medical software Rex Black reveals how satisfying stakeholders for 25 years is a beautiful thing Mathematician John D. Cook applies a classic definition of beauty, based on complexity and unity, to testing random number generators About The Author Tim Riley is the Director of Quality Assurance at Mozilla. He has tested software for 18 years including everything from spacecraft simulators, ground control systems, high security operating systems, language platforms, application servers, hosted services and open source web applications. He has managed software testing teams in startups to large corporations consisting of 3 to 120 people in size and in up to 6 countries. He has a software patent for a testing execution framework which matches test suites to available test systems. He enjoys being a breeder caretaker for Canine Companions for Independence (cci.org) along with live and studio sound engineering. Adam Goucher has been testing software professionally for over ten years. In that time he has worked with start-ups, large multi-nationals and ones in between in both traditional and agile testing environments. A believer in the communication of ideas big and small, he writes frequently at Adam Goucher and teaches testing skills at a Toronto area technical college. In his off hours he can be found either playing or coaching box lacrosse - and then promptly applying lessons learned to testing. He is also an active member of the Association for Software Testing. Table of Contents Beautiful Testers Chapter 1 Was It Good for You? Chapter 2 Beautiful Testing Satisfies Stakeholders Chapter 3 Building Open Source QA Communities Chapter 4 Collaboration Is the Cornerstone of Beautiful Performance Testing Beautiful Process Chapter 5 Just Peachy: Making Office Software More Reliable with Fuzz Testing Chapter 6 Bug Management and Test Case Effectiveness Chapter 7 Beautiful XMPP Testing Chapter 8 Beautiful Large-Scale Test Automation Chapter 9 Beautiful Is Better Than Ugly Chapter 10 Testing a Random Number Generator Chapter 11 Change-Centric Testing Chapter 12 Software in Use Chapter 13 Software Development Is a Creative Process Chapter 14 Test-Driven Development: Driving New Standards of Beauty Chapter 15 Beautiful Testing As the Cornerstone of Business Success Chapter 16 Peeling the Glass Onion at Socialtext Chapter 17 Beautiful Testing Is Efficient Testing Beautiful Tools Chapter 18 Seeding Bugs to Find Bugs: Beautiful Mutation Testing Chapter 19 Reference Testing As Beautiful Testing Chapter 20 Clam Anti-Virus: Testing Open Source with Open Tools Chapter 21 Web Application Testing with Windmill Chapter 22 Testing One Million Web Pages Chapter 23 Testing Network Services in Multimachine Scenarios Appendix Contributors Colophon