From: Brian Marick Date: 2007-02-02T04:08:19+09:00 Subject: Re: Everyday scripting with Ruby (the book) On Feb 1, 2007, at 8:10 AM, Bret Pettichord wrote: > 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. Bret is right about this. A bit more: - Back when the title was _Scripting for Testers_, I decided to use examples *other* than automating test execution. Too often, testers focus only on test automation when they have lots of other tasks they could automate for quick wins. - Partly because of that, some reviewers commented that the original title was too narrow. Other people could get use out of the book. So we changed the title. - "[Part 3 is] mainly about teaching you how to write scripts in a steady, controlled way. All programmers know the feeling of hitting that wall where they can't make any change without breaking something. I want to show you how to push that wall further away." My experience has been that testers hit that wall way sooner than they should because they don't know about ideas like refactoring, unit testing, and intention-revealing code, so I aimed to help with that. - I wanted to emphasize scripts that live in a larger world, so I've tried to help readers find and make use of other people's work, and to make their own work easy for others to install. ----- Brian Marick, independent consultant Mostly on agile methods with a testing slant www.exampler.com, www.testing.com/cgi-bin/blog ----- Brian Marick, independent consultant Mostly on agile methods with a testing slant www.exampler.com, www.testing.com/cgi-bin/blog