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Exploratory Software Testing: Tips, Tricks (text only) by J.A. Whittaker

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Exploratory Software Tips, Tricks, Tours, and Techniques to Guide Test Design [Paperback]James A. Whittaker (Author)

224 pages, Paperback

First published August 1, 2009

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250 people want to read

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James A. Whittaker

18 books32 followers

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5 stars
43 (30%)
4 stars
53 (37%)
3 stars
34 (24%)
2 stars
8 (5%)
1 star
2 (1%)
Displaying 1 - 12 of 12 reviews
Profile Image for Tyler.
210 reviews4 followers
March 22, 2013
Had to give this one back to the library. What I got out of it from the 80 or so pages I read was important - I am still learning things about testing every day and this gave me a good outline of different strategies I can try while performing "manual" testing.
Profile Image for Oleksandr Romanov.
22 reviews
June 5, 2025
Really useful book for diving into the exploratory testing approach. The author gives us a great variety of tips and techniques on how to do exploratory testing properly and in a different contexts.

Absolutely must read book by any software tester.
2 reviews
June 2, 2014
Really good read. Lots of interesting ideas. The chapter about Tours was a bit of a struggle to read but overall a really good book.
Profile Image for AkelaRa.
177 reviews4 followers
June 23, 2024
Ненавиджу читати професійну літературу. В книгах по тестуванню все або дуже технічною сухою мовою написано (istqb, привіт), або так художньо, що якщо викинути всю воду, то буде 2-3 дописи. Ну 10. Але не книга.

Зате я прочитала шось професійне і це важлива галочка.
І ще підтвердила з зовнішнього джерела свої певні гіпотези щодо тестування (зокрема, автор згодний зі мною, що тестувати дизайн краще, ніж не тестувати, але краще долучати дизайнерів до тестування, ніж тестувальників до дизайну).

Перше видання книги 1965. Додані глави ап ту 2009 рік. Що диктує свої умови щодо сексистських жартів. А з новішою літературою сложна, бо все вже сказано.

Крч, це було неоднозначно, але корисно.
Profile Image for Viktor Slavchev.
24 reviews4 followers
November 26, 2018
I definitely liked the language of the book, very approachable and easy to grasp on.
It is a good introduction to exploratory testing to somebody who never knew what it is.
Touring is a good metaphor and offers a compelling story.
Anyway. I find authors competence to speak about exploratory testing doubtful, I find the book being too shallow and not getting in depth what ET is. It also offers a lot of testing folklore that has proven to by partially true or even absolutely wrong and harmful.
49 reviews3 followers
August 4, 2013
For testers: this book covers techniques and ways to approach exploratory testing that will make it easier to focus, and find more bugs.

For developers: this book is useful in explaining the challenges in testing, and will invariably improve the kind of code you write.

The books is good. A lot of things it mentions are obvious if you have tested or written code, but the book does a good job at organizing approaches to testing, simplifying the overhead of thinking about how to test, so you can focus more on what you are testing.

The appendixes are useless in my opinion. Most of what is said in appendixes is stated in main part of the book in a more clear, concise, and organized manner. Removing these would have made the book 40% shorter.

The future predictions are somewhat far fetched, but they always are.
3 reviews
November 16, 2009
I sit next to James Whittaker at work. He is absolutely brilliant. His book is revolutionary in its approach to manual testing. It is also extremely easy to follow and apply the concepts as he presents them. I strongly recommend this book to anyone in the software development or testing field.
Profile Image for Sarah.
137 reviews5 followers
December 10, 2009
This book was about manual testing, but didn't really offer too much insight beyond the obvious. Interesting that they decided to write a book about manual testing though.
Displaying 1 - 12 of 12 reviews

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