From: Richard Conroy Date: 2007-02-01T21:43:54+09:00 Subject: Re: Everyday scripting with Ruby (the book) On 2/1/07, Jason Mayer wrote: > > Anyway, it doesn't seem to cover any WATIR, Selenium, Fit or Fitnesse, but > > it is a primer that would help to get people up to speed. > > What about this comment from that link (thanks btw it's what I was > looking for too): > > Marick explains the Ruby language using a series of short, practical > examples. Watir users and other testers who want to learn Ruby will > find it very accessible. > Bret Pettichord > Lead Developer > Watir Bret is the first guy credited in the acknowledgements. But the book isn't a manual on how to use WATIR. Or judging by the Table of Contents, they couldn't have spent more than 2 pages talking about it. WATIR can more or less be learned without knowing Ruby, you can get stuff done with just the minimal amount of Ruby syntax, arrays, puts, basic loops and conditionals. But you will hit a wall, or a tester would have to call in a programmer, when you need to do things like tie all your tests together, generate a test report etc. Much like Rails, people can get a lot done without knowing Ruby, and just knowing the Rails syntax subset. For that community they got the Ruby for Rails book to get them onto Ruby enlightenment. I think this book could accomplish the same thing for testers. I really really liked the first tutorial example: How to test if an uninstaller actually did its job right and cleaned up everything. If you adapt that example for your own products, and never open the book again, that book has paid for itself the first time you run that test. Eagerly looking forward to it.