Review of
Testing
Embedded Software, by Bart Broekman and Edwin Notenboom,
ISBN 0321159861
The great
fictional detective Hercule Poirot often claimed that his primary tactics used
in solving crimes were using “the little grey cells” and “order and method.” In
other words think hard and do so in a systematic manner. Given the incredible
complexity of modern software and the impossible nature of executing every path
through the programs, the key to testing is to make sure the primary paths and
functions are thoroughly examined. Hence the application of the Poirot
principles, which is what this book describes.
A complete plan
for the testing of the software is put forward, from the basic principles and
goals of testing, to the strategy for testing to the development of checklists
to the human resource management principles. There is very little in the book
that is specifically targeted to the testing of embedded system software,
change a few words and the tactics used in the tests and this content is a
detailed blueprint for the testing of all complex software. Strip off some more
so that only the skeleton remains and the plan here could be used to test the
implementation of any complex process where there are multiple event options
that cascade and reinforce/dampen each other.
Few computer
books age well, most are obsolete within three years. The content in this one
is timeless and is just as applicable to software development today as it was
when it was first published.
This book was made available for free for review
purposes.
No comments:
Post a Comment