books for software quality control and assurance

[Steve Taiwan]

I am interesting in software quality control and assurance.
The main topics I want to know are unit test, integration test, system test, performance test, functional test, how to set up testing mechanism, how to do software quality control, how to do software quailty assurance, how to set software QC mechanism.
Does anyone know any good book about these topics?

Thank you in advance for the valuable inputs.

[Ilja Preuss]

"Testing Extreme Programming" might be a good fit for the functional testing side.

Regarding unit testing, how much should it go into technical details?

[Steve Taiwan]

Dear Ilja

Thank you for the reply.
Actually, I want a book which can briefly introduce several test mechanisms.
And I would like to follow the instructions from that book to set up a test mechanism for my team in order to control software quality.
Could you introduce one for me?

[Ilja Preuss]

First let me state that no book knowledge can replace experience. Practices need to be adapted to specific projects, and how that's done cannot be tought by a book - simply applying a cookbook approach probably won't do you much good. So if at all possible, try to get some experience on board - training, an experienced coach, whatever. And don't expect immediate succes: http://www.stevenmsmith.com/articles/satir_change_model.htm

For the following, keep in mind that I'm a strong proponent of Agile Software Development.

Agile Projects, most specifically XP projects, basically have two layers of tests:

- Customer Tests (aka Story Tests, aka Functional Tests) - fully automated tests, specified by the domain expert with the help of testers, testing that the requirements are met.

- Programmer Tests (aka Unit Tests) - fully automated tests, written by the developers, testing that units of code work as intended by the developers.

Agile Projects try to get feedback as early and frequent as possible, so they are highly iterative - they work in iteration of one to three weeks length, delivering running tested features and the end of each one.

Customer Tests therefore are written each iteration, because at the end of the iteration they have to show that the requested features are implemented. Top teams even finish writing the Customer Tests *before* the iteration in which the features are to developed starts. The Customer Tests *are* the requirements documents for those teams.

The already mentioned "Testing Extreme Programming" is a good introduction on the role of a tester in an Agile team. "Fit for Developing Software" is a book that goes into the technical details of using the currently most used tool in that area: http://fitnesse.org/

Programmer Tests are written concurrently with the code. Many developers use and love a practice called Test Driven Development, that leads to better designs and a very high code coverage. There are lots of books about that out there. "Test Driven Development by Example" is one of the best introductions you can get.

Does that help?

[Steve Taiwan]

Dear Ilja Preuss

I know what is Unit Test, what is Integration Test, what is functional test....
However, I don't want to tell my boss that I invent these mechanisms.
I hope there is a book, demostrating what they are, and then my boss can be persuaded that they are software standard.
Therefore, I need a book for that purpose.

Hope you recommand one for me.

[Ilja Preuss]

I don't know of such a book.

But frankly, I have never seen a book persuade a manager (or any human being) on anything he wasn't already interested in beforehand. Getting someone to accept a new idea as worth a try typically involves more work than just giving him something to read about it.

I highly recommend the book "Fearless Change" on this topic - it gives tons of good advice on how to introduce new ideas and practices at the workplace.

[Steve Taiwan]

Dear Ilja Preuss

Thank you very much.