Worst book I ever red - "Software Testing Foundations"
Submitted by Ainars Galvans on Thu, 26/04/2007 - 09:38.
This is first blog in series of review of ISTQB certification. I begin with their textbook Software Testing Foundations. May I admit I’ve red the most terrible book in my life (even worse that books I was forced to read back in school) - officially ISTQB compliant book - because I have to take their exams soon (that’s the company decision based on fact that some customers requires certified testers). In order to pass the exam I need to learn the context in which the board is thinking (I know they don’t realize there may be different contexts). And yes I found for example that their context is V-model. For a moment I even considered that they did such a poor quality book on a purpose – to show everyone that this book just as any other writing need review before publishing. The book is perfect example of ambiguous, self-contradictive and deficient writing.
For example it was quite typical to see pages of some process item description using words “must be” and at the end of a chapter there comes paragraph that says something like “but in real life, most typically you don’t have time or any other means to do that, so in real life you do this way: and describe it in one or two sentences. The two sentences are not enough to understand (ambiguous) and sometimes even wring or misleading (for example talking about Exploratory Testing they do not allow idea that test case design are based on observations during test execution, only based on experience or intuition).
My interpretation of reasons
Now seriously – there are two reasons. It is clear that they don’t care of quality – the goal of the book was time and scope only. They needed to cover ISTQB syllabi, nothing more. They don’t care for customer satisfaction with the book quality, because the book will be purchased anyway due to the only reason – because it is ISTQB compliant and are the main material to prepare for exams. In one of a reviews I found the second reasons, that is based on the first however – the book have been poorly translated from German. Probably German version is somewhat better.
Why I red it? Or what does it mean to take ISTQB exam
I don’t like reading books since childhood. However I’ve red some 10 professional books (testing, management, performance). I always read reviews carefully because I don’t want even start reading bad book. Now I know how it feels like to read (bad) one. So why did I do that? And why I did not stop reading it after the first chapter?
I have quite an experience in testing and I should have passed the exam without any additional learning as I know everything they could teach the beginner, don’t I? Yes indeed I know that and I know even more – I know that this theory badly applies in practice or at least on in any context. So I need to recall what the strange thing the theory say as m practice have changed my understanding of theory a lot.
Let me take an example. I don’t know how it happens in other countries but here in Latvia to get driving license you have to tests. One is theory and the other is practice. In the theory there are two types of question – one direct questions about law, the another part – so called “safety”. They are supposed to describe real life situation and ask how would a person proceed in such a situation (based on safety considerations, not on law). That’s what almost all of the professional drivers laugh at as there are so many context information in any real life situation that can’t be described in exam question, so the question is ambiguous. Even worse with driving – any driver who have sever years practice knows that driving at least in a big city with intensive traffic does not directly accord to not laws. There are a lot of “unwritten laws” such as – you could act against law within certain offset in a certain situations (my English is poor here but I hope it is clear from context what I mean).
So if you have a good experience in driving and you want to pass exam you need to recall or even learn what are the stuff that beginner is supposed to know, what is the way of driving the beginner is supposed to drive. That’s what I’m learning reading the book.
As a final word – maybe if the book would pretend to be connected with real life and there wouldn’t be those chapter endings and additional sub-chapters talking about real life, I would accept this as pure theory. But they intent this to be practical book, don’t they?
Now as I wrote this I reread the intro of the book. Their goal is (of course) the improve quality of a software and the process. But they assume that:
1) “One way to achieve this goal is systematic evaluation and testing“. And they don’t even talk about other ways
2) “Appropriate procedures” is sufficient and required for this. No skills, experience even personnel knowledge outside the procedures.
3) “Structure testing” is the only “appropriate procedure”
4) ISTQB have gathered “the basic knowledge” and any procedure that contradict with it are not “appropriate” one
Meanwhile they agree in their book content that real life engineering procedures are not typically applicable with a lot of their "basic knowledge". More over they agree with phenomena like defect clustering and pesticide paradox and agree that they requiring dynamic approach (meanwhile the “basic” procedures they describe are based on detailed planning and well scripted tests).
For example it was quite typical to see pages of some process item description using words “must be” and at the end of a chapter there comes paragraph that says something like “but in real life, most typically you don’t have time or any other means to do that, so in real life you do this way: and describe it in one or two sentences. The two sentences are not enough to understand (ambiguous) and sometimes even wring or misleading (for example talking about Exploratory Testing they do not allow idea that test case design are based on observations during test execution, only based on experience or intuition).
My interpretation of reasons
Now seriously – there are two reasons. It is clear that they don’t care of quality – the goal of the book was time and scope only. They needed to cover ISTQB syllabi, nothing more. They don’t care for customer satisfaction with the book quality, because the book will be purchased anyway due to the only reason – because it is ISTQB compliant and are the main material to prepare for exams. In one of a reviews I found the second reasons, that is based on the first however – the book have been poorly translated from German. Probably German version is somewhat better.
Why I red it? Or what does it mean to take ISTQB exam
I don’t like reading books since childhood. However I’ve red some 10 professional books (testing, management, performance). I always read reviews carefully because I don’t want even start reading bad book. Now I know how it feels like to read (bad) one. So why did I do that? And why I did not stop reading it after the first chapter?
I have quite an experience in testing and I should have passed the exam without any additional learning as I know everything they could teach the beginner, don’t I? Yes indeed I know that and I know even more – I know that this theory badly applies in practice or at least on in any context. So I need to recall what the strange thing the theory say as m practice have changed my understanding of theory a lot.
Let me take an example. I don’t know how it happens in other countries but here in Latvia to get driving license you have to tests. One is theory and the other is practice. In the theory there are two types of question – one direct questions about law, the another part – so called “safety”. They are supposed to describe real life situation and ask how would a person proceed in such a situation (based on safety considerations, not on law). That’s what almost all of the professional drivers laugh at as there are so many context information in any real life situation that can’t be described in exam question, so the question is ambiguous. Even worse with driving – any driver who have sever years practice knows that driving at least in a big city with intensive traffic does not directly accord to not laws. There are a lot of “unwritten laws” such as – you could act against law within certain offset in a certain situations (my English is poor here but I hope it is clear from context what I mean).
So if you have a good experience in driving and you want to pass exam you need to recall or even learn what are the stuff that beginner is supposed to know, what is the way of driving the beginner is supposed to drive. That’s what I’m learning reading the book.
As a final word – maybe if the book would pretend to be connected with real life and there wouldn’t be those chapter endings and additional sub-chapters talking about real life, I would accept this as pure theory. But they intent this to be practical book, don’t they?
Now as I wrote this I reread the intro of the book. Their goal is (of course) the improve quality of a software and the process. But they assume that:
1) “One way to achieve this goal is systematic evaluation and testing“. And they don’t even talk about other ways
2) “Appropriate procedures” is sufficient and required for this. No skills, experience even personnel knowledge outside the procedures.
3) “Structure testing” is the only “appropriate procedure”
4) ISTQB have gathered “the basic knowledge” and any procedure that contradict with it are not “appropriate” one
Meanwhile they agree in their book content that real life engineering procedures are not typically applicable with a lot of their "basic knowledge". More over they agree with phenomena like defect clustering and pesticide paradox and agree that they requiring dynamic approach (meanwhile the “basic” procedures they describe are based on detailed planning and well scripted tests).