Top 10 Books Every Tester Should Read
While recently cleaning out my bookshelf, I dusted off my old copy of Testing Computer Software written by Cem Kaner, Hung Q Nguyen, and Jack Falk. I was given this book back in 2003 by my first computer science teacher as a present for a project well done. This brought back some memories and got me thinking how much books affect our lives even in this modern blog and youtube age. There are courses for everything, tutorials for everything, and a blog about it somewhere on medium. However nothing compares to a hardcore information download you can get from a well written book by truly legendary experts of a field.
But what are some of the best books?
- Foundation of Software Testing by Cem Kaner:-This was my first book on testing and I have some bias towards it. Therefore it’s at first place. This book is a hardcore foundation building book that I would recommend to every newbie tester. This will help you understand simple yet necessary pillars of testing like test cases and test case management. However my favourite parts are, chapters on necessity of software testing. MUST READ!!
- Agile Estimating and planning by Mike Cohn: This book is a recommended read if you want to learn about how to be a agile tester. The book’s speciality is it’s focus on testing planning methods and cases that can be faced in Agile testing. You would learn how to make a good plan within a sort of time and get to know about some of the basic tools that can be used in Agile Development.
- A Practical Guide to Testing in DevOps by Katrine Clokie: The book intricately describes the continuous changes that kept coming in Agile development. You would learn the ways of Automation testing especially with respect to agile development and how it can be practiced. A good book for Automation testers!!
- Selenium Testing Tools Cookbook by Unmesh Gundecha: The book masterly explains testing procedures related to building and running Automated test for web applications. This book is a good start for web automation testers.
- Bug Advocacy by Cem Kaner and Rebecca Fiedler: After reading the book, you will be able to identify what typical bugs and software solution generally has, report the bugs and the main how it can’t be introduced again. MUST Read for the learner’s or practitioners in testing!!
- Software testing by Ron Patton:- Another book that builds on fundamentals focusing over strategies and procedure.It gets you upto speed with jargons and basic methodologies that you would need to do more advanced stuff down the line It provides the easy ways to figure out the most common software testing aspects.After learning you can easily perform tests over web applications, tests for usability , functionality and many others.
- The Agile Samurai by Jonathan Rasmusson: This book goes into detail about Agile world and how a good agile team can be formed. This book focuses upon modern testers and importance of understanding customer’s requirement especially in agile development setting. After learning you will be able to use agile techniques that will help to met the product as per the customer’s requirement. Must Read for Practitioners in Agile development.!!
- Implementing Automated Software Testing: How to Save Time and Lower Costs While Raising Quality by Elfriede Dustin, Thom Garrett, Bernie Gauf: As the name suggests, this book will highlight why exactly how automation test work far better than other testings.It elaborates the skills and knowledge required for automation testing.
- Lessons Learned in Software Testing by Cem Kaner: A guide to common mistakes people make in the start of the QA jobs. The book contains real examples that will help you overcome problems before they even arise and increase the efficiency of your test team.
- Experience of Test Automation by Dorothy Graham & Mark Fewster: This book contains 28 real life cases on automation testing together with 14 shorter anecdote. The experience the author had talked about will help you to develop your automation testing skills.