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James A. Whittaker

How to Break Software: A Practical Guide to Testing W/CD 1st Edition

by James Whittaker (Author)

(46)

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How to Break Software is a departure from conventional testing in which testers prepare a written test plan and then use it as a script when testing the software. The testing techniques in this book are as flexible as conventional testing is rigid. And flexibility is needed in software projects in which requirements can change, bugs can become features and schedule pressures often force plans to be reassessed. Software testing is not such an exact science that one can determine what to test in advance and then execute the plan and be done with it. Instead of a plan, intelligence, insight, experience and a "nose for where the bugs are hiding" should guide testers. This book helps testers develop this insight. The techniques presented in this book not only allow testers to go off-script, they encourage them to do so. Don't blindly follow a document that may be out of date and that was written before the product was even testable. Instead, use your head! Open your eyes! Think a little, test a little and then think a little more. This book does teach planning, but in an "on- the-fly while you are testing" way. It also encourages automation with many repetitive and complex tasks that require good tools (one such tool is shipped with this book on the companion CD). However, tools are never used as a replacement for intelligence. Testers do the thinking and use tools to collect data and help them explore applications more efficiently and effectively.

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ISBN-10

0201796198
ISBN-13

978-0201796193
Edition

1st
Publisher

Pearson
Publication date

May 9, 2002
Language

English
Dimensions

6.9 x 0.7 x 9 inches
Print length

208 pages

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Editorial Reviews

From the Back Cover

Practical tutorial on how to actually do testing by presenting numerous "attacks" you can perform to test your software for bugs.

* Practical approach has little or no theory, but shows real ways effectively test software—accessible to beginners and seasoned testers.
* The author is well known and respected as an industry consultant and speaker.
* Uses market leading, and immediately identifiable, software applications as examples to show bugs and techniques.
How to Break Software is a departure from conventional testing in which testers prepare a written test plan and then use it as a script when testing the software. The testing techniques in this book are as flexible as conventional testing is rigid. And flexibility is needed in software projects in which requirements can change, bugs can become features and schedule pressures often force plans to be reassessed. Software testing is not such an exact science that one can determine what to test in advance and then execute the plan and be done with it. Instead of a plan, intelligence, insight, experience and a "nose for where the bugs are hiding" should guide testers. This book helps testers develop this insight. The techniques presented in this book not only allow testers to go off-script, they encourage them to do so. Don't blindly follow a document that may be out of date and that was written before the product was even testable. Instead, use your head! Open your eyes! Think a little, test a little and then think a little more. This book does teach planning, but in an "on- the-fly while you are testing" way. It also encourages automation with many repetitive and complex tasks that require good tools (one such tool is shipped with this book on the companion CD). However, tools are never used as a replacement for intelligence. Testers do the thinking and use tools to collect data and help them explore applications more efficiently and effectively.

James A. Whittaker is a well-known speaker and consultant, as well as seasoned professor.

About the Author

James A. Whittaker is a well-known speaker and consultant, as well as seasoned professor.

Product details

Publisher ‏ : ‎ Pearson
Publication date ‏ : ‎ May 9, 2002
Edition ‏ : ‎ 1st
Language ‏ : ‎ English
Print length ‏ : ‎ 208 pages
ISBN-10 ‏ : ‎ 0201796198
ISBN-13 ‏ : ‎ 978-0201796193
Dimensions ‏ : ‎ 6.9 x 0.7 x 9 inches
Best Sellers Rank: #1,613,740 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
- #496 in Software Design & Engineering
- #525 in Software Testing
- #1,862 in Software Development (Books)
Customer Reviews:
(46)

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James A. Whittaker
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James Whittaker is a speaker, author, futurist and distinguished engineer who specializes in creativity and stagecraft.
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Lala
most thorough and organized book for beginners
Reviewed in the United States on September 23, 2008
Format: PaperbackVerified Purchase

Thsi book was recommended by two people working at Microsoft. One was a Test Lead in IIS team and another a Test Manager with the Games for Windows team. I thought that being the case it would be worth giving it a shot. Here are some of my observations:

1) This book is fast paced.

2) Every point is made succinctly and not blabbered on, so it keeps your interest througout.

3) Provides lots of examples to help relate. Many are errors in MS Word 2000, which also makes it interesting to read.

4) Covered many distinct types of approaches, so is very thorough and organized. Different types of testing, types of attack within each type of testing, how/what/when details of the attack is all listed. Nothing left out.

5) Aimed towards newbies to testing, but is a good quick refresher resource for those who have been into testing for a little bit.

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Einzige
Great for Beginners
Reviewed in the United States on April 16, 2005
Format: PaperbackVerified Purchase
This is an awesome book for software testers with less than two years of experience. If that's you, then you'll definitely get a lot of value out of it. You should buy it without hesitation.

What it does well is provide a clear understanding of what it means to "think like a tester." I recommend also that QA managers give it to their greenest team members. They will undoubtedly become better testers as a result.

However, if you're someone who has been in QA for several years, all of these attacks are going to be obvious--and ones that you almost certainly will already consider a part of your regular testing repertoire.

Even still, it's fun reading about some of the extant bugs in shipping Microsoft products, with step-by-step instructions on how to make them happen. I also like the freeware that comes with it--it's limited in scope, but still quite useful for certain testing situations.

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8 people found this helpful

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mschu
Great book for IT professionals
Reviewed in the United States on July 3, 2012
Format: PaperbackVerified Purchase
This book is geared toward testers and how to properly test your software, but it should be required reading for software developers as they are usually the worst testers out there. I had the opportunity to take a one day course based on this book from the author is it was great.

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Carla Betancourt
Great book for tester!
Reviewed in the United States on March 6, 2010
Format: PaperbackVerified Purchase
This book runs away from theory and go right into practice. It can open up your view on how to test software. Great book. I recommend.

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Caterina Pryde
Great for beginner or intermediate
Reviewed in the United States on April 23, 2007
Format: PaperbackVerified Purchase
Great book covering orthodox and some unorthodox thoughts on testing methods and some specific guides. While the college trained tester or the person with many years of experience will probably find this too basic, it's still worth thumbing through for a new idea or two. The most common testing faults are missing common issues, such as testing for bad or negative input.

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3 people found this helpful

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JD
Good for beginners about sums it up, yes...
Reviewed in the United States on March 18, 2009
Format: Paperback
I acquired this book as part of a training exercise from my current company. I figured since I used Amazon reviews largely to decide which books to purchase for that it would be good to leave some in return.

When I graduated college, I told myself I'd never again pick up a school book without good cause because they are largely terrible reads and can be very difficult outside of a school setting both because there's no professor and no drive. When I found out that "How to Break Software" was written by a college professor for his students I was skeptical. However, I found it to be a very good read. Professor Whittaker writes in a very easy to read style with the references to self and social aspects that I enjoy as well as incorporate in my own writing (despite what I was taught in college;)). His examples are simple and easy to understand I imagine for novice or veteran testers.

Unfortunately, this is where my use of the book and enjoyment of the book ended. I've been working in the QA/QC industry for about 7 years now. After the introduction, I found most of the chapters to be more of a synopsis of good practices than teaching me anything. This is fine for school kids who know little to nothing about testing or for people just getting into QA; however I did not find it particularly useful as a veteran which is contrary to the disclaimers in the introduction as well as the snips about the book on the covering. This feeling lasted until about the time they introduced the Canned HEAT and Holodeck applications which I found interesting and was excited to use. That is until I saw the examples they gave and I realized that if I used them in my current workplace I would be testing the web browsers and operating system more than I would be testing the application itself. That's a specific issue though and this is not to say the tools are not useful (they may even have some use in my workplace) however reading chapters about them and mostly them was annoying knowing this.

Ironically, the best part of the book in my opinion was the synopsis of what QA (QC) is and why it's difficult which was essentially the last thing I read (Appendix C). However, no part of the book beyond a brief mention in the intro/TOC told you to read this. Also ironically, one Chapter did warn you to read Appendix A and B before reading on and then proceeded to go over the material in those Appendices as if you did not even using the same examples, something I found frustrating as a reader. I got the feeling, he as a teacher expected his students NOT to read the Appendices and thus put the material in there anyway. I could be wrong though.

Another part of the irony about Appendix C is that it is, as disclaimed, an article taken mostly from an IEEE article. So, the part of the book I enjoyed the most wasn't even written by Professor Whittaker.

The fact this book is dated really shows in the examples as well which are for programs such as IE5 and Windows 2000. The flaws here may be able to be reproduced but most likely they have been fixed. I also found the exercises trite and did not execute any of them.

Anyway, in synopsis, I don't not recommend this book (yes, double negative), however, I think it has limited use for those who are moderate to experience QAers. I think it's a great read for anyone starting out and for them would become a great book to put on their shelf and say this is what guided me to become the QA/QC professional I am today. The tools seem valuable and I look forward to trying them out but their application is not for every professional environment.

PS: I didn't remember this until I was going to post the article but based upon other reviews I chose to purchase this book over "How to Break Web Software" and "How to Break Software Security". This may have been a mistake on my part. Perhaps I will check out those two in a future endeavor. I am not so turned away from Prof. Whittaker as to not consider that.

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The Freelancer
Thanks.
Reviewed in the United States on March 16, 2018
Format: PaperbackVerified Purchase
Thanks.

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G. Vignes
Don't Waste Your Money
Reviewed in the United States on September 1, 2004
Format: Paperback
The text is interesting and informative. The text is short and sweet. There are examples, which is nice. That is as good as it gets.

Much of the text is based on Canned Heat, a test environment which the author claims works of Windows 2000. This claim appears to be bogus. I have verified that the software does not work on several perfectly healthy Windows 2000 workstations. The software does appear to work on Windows XP.

The problem is that so much of the text is based on Canned Heat, so if you can't get this to work, much of the text is not that useful. The text begins to sound like a marketing brochure for Canned Heat.

If you go to the website, you may be dissappointed (as I was) to never receive a response. Every form I tried returned an error message. I have verified this with other interested parties. Emails to the addresses provided have not been answered.

My best advice is to avoid "How to Break Software" and "How to Break Software Security." For what little you get, the books are overpriced.

If the author wants his readers to take him seriously as an authority on software testing, then he should spend more time testing his own software before shipping it out. Frankly, I find it hard to take him seriously if this is the best he can do.

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Iuliia
Great book
Reviewed in Spain on August 24, 2015
Format: PaperbackVerified Purchase

I've bought this book to use it for the ISTQB exam. It is really useful book, contains a lot of practical examples.

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Sohnee
Still Good
Reviewed in the United Kingdom on May 13, 2015
Format: PaperbackVerified Purchase
Although the CD is probably getting a little dusty (I can't find updates for the tools online) the book itself is a strong introduction to a series of useful testing practices.

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Sheli
great tips
Reviewed in Canada on January 10, 2019
Format: PaperbackVerified Purchase
really helped me improve

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BjörnK
Nichts neues
Reviewed in Germany on May 8, 2013
Format: PaperbackVerified Purchase
Die in dem Buch beschriebenen Vorgehensweisen beim Testen von Software sind jedem Tester mit gesundem Menschenverstand bekannt. Die Hinweise zu Testdaten und Testvorgehen dürften im Standard-Repertoire jeder modernen Testsuite bereits enthalten sein.

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vs
Nice little book
Reviewed in Canada on June 4, 2012
Format: PaperbackVerified Purchase
James Whitaker rules. This book is short and to the point. Only touches basic and typical errors programmers make as well as a bit of a reasoning why they make these errors. Will use it in junior testers training.

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5.0 out of 5 stars Great book

4.0 out of 5 stars Still Good

5.0 out of 5 stars great tips

1.0 out of 5 stars Nichts neues

4.0 out of 5 stars Nice little book

Great book

Still Good

great tips

Nichts neues

Nice little book