November 2025
Intermediate to advanced
560 pages
16h 10m
English
Content preview from Taking Testing Seriously
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O’Reilly covers everything we've got, with content to help us build a world-class technology community, upgrade the capabilities and competencies of our teams, and improve overall team performance as well as their engagement.I wanted to learn C and C++, but it didn't click for me until I picked up an O'Reilly book. When I went on the O’Reilly platform, I was astonished to find all the books there, plus live events and sandboxes so you could play around with the technology.I’ve been on the O’Reilly platform for more than eight years. I use a couple of learning platforms, but I'm on O'Reilly more than anybody else. When you're there, you start learning. I'm never disappointed.I'm always learning. So when I got on to O'Reilly, I was like a kid in a candy store. There are playlists. There are answers. There's on-demand training. It's worth its weight in gold, in terms of what it allows me to do.
CHAPTER 21Notes on a Seeker's Journey into Testing
—By Marius Frâncu
I am a programmer trying to learn as much as I can about testing. Some time ago, I met Michael Bolton in person to interview him.1 I was surprised to find out that he had questions for me as well. Our discussion was richly varied.2 Here are some of the questions we discussed:
- What should programmers know about RST? How is that different from what they think they know?
- Is there an important difference between a programmer and a tester?
- Why do managers push back against the testers trying to be careful and responsible about their work?
- What about the trendy idea that “We do not need testers; programmers will do all the testing”?
In this chapter, I will try to give answers.
“I Trust I Make Myself Obscure”
Before I give my answers, I want to cover some of the premises and models that animate my views on testing.
One of my favorite Romanian authors is Nicolae Steinhardt. I would never have thought that I could learn so much from his writings that would help me in my professional life. There is a quote from Thomas More that Steinhardt often refers to in his writings: “I trust I make myself obscure.” Steinhardt decodes this sentence as follows: “I hope that I am not easy to understand, that you—the one I am addressing—will realize the complexity and difficulty of the subject we tackle, the trust I place in you by laying bare before you not conventional thoughts in ordinary words, but the very turmoil of my most ...
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O’Reilly covers everything we've got, with content to help us build a world-class technology community, upgrade the capabilities and competencies of our teams, and improve overall team performance as well as their engagement.Julian F.
I wanted to learn C and C++, but it didn't click for me until I picked up an O'Reilly book. When I went on the O’Reilly platform, I was astonished to find all the books there, plus live events and sandboxes so you could play around with the technology.Addison B.
I’ve been on the O’Reilly platform for more than eight years. I use a couple of learning platforms, but I'm on O'Reilly more than anybody else. When you're there, you start learning. I'm never disappointed.Amir M.
I'm always learning. So when I got on to O'Reilly, I was like a kid in a candy store. There are playlists. There are answers. There's on-demand training. It's worth its weight in gold, in terms of what it allows me to do.