From: Bret Pettichord Date: 2007-02-01T23:10:09+09:00 Subject: Re: Everyday scripting with Ruby (the book) On Feb 1, 3:59 am, "Richard Conroy" wrote: > I am curious, has anyone read this? It looks good, and I like the idea > of a tester- > friendly ruby primer, but I would like to know what else it covers. > > Like whether it introduces WATIR, Selenium etc. No it does not discuss these tools (nor Fit). It does, however, have a detailed explanation of Test::Unit in a context that testers will probably appreciate. > Learning the language is good, but testers don't have as much time or discretion > to learn languages, so return on time investment is important. So I would hope > that after reading the book they would be in a position to independently start > doing their own tests. I would say that it is more of a Ruby language manual for testers than a primer on how to use Ruby for testing. Testers who have been learning Watir and have been wanting a book that will help them with Ruby are likely to like this book. I have found that testers usually prefer concrete, realistic examples over abstract concepts or fanciful examples. Although many of the Ruby programming examples in the book may not quite count as "testing" to many testers, they will be close enough, that if they already know Watir, they will be able to see how to put it all together pretty quickly. > Would it be better if I posted this to the WATIR list? You comments would also be welcome there. Many Watir users don't read this list. We get a lot of general Ruby questions on the list. As you surely know, Watir really isn't a testing tool, but rather a library for driving a browser. Most testers find that they need to build a larger testing framework, but don't know enough Ruby to know how to really do this. These people should be reading Everyday Scripting. I just got my copy of the published version yesterday, although I had read the galley's previously. I'm planning to write up a longer review this weekend. Bret