front matter
In modern software development, software testing steers the design, implementation, evolution, quality assurance, and deployment of software systems. To be an effective developer, you must become an effective software tester. This book helps you to achieve that goal.
Put simply, testing is nothing but executing a piece of software to see if it behaves as expected. But testing is also hard. Its difficulty surfaces when thinking about the full set of test cases to be designed and executed. Out of the infinitely many possible test cases, which one should you write? Did you do enough testing to move the system to production? What extra tests do you need? Why these tests? And, if you need to change the system, how should you set up the test suite so that it supports rather than impedes future change?
This book doesn’t shy away from such complex questions. It covers key testing techniques like design by contract, property-based testing, boundary testing, test adequacy criteria, mutation testing, and the proper use of mock objects. Where relevant, it gives pointers to additional research papers on the topic.