Testing Applications on the Web: Test Planning for Mobile and Internet-Based Systems, Second Edition

Foreword

Writing about Web testing is challenging because the field involves the interdependence of so many different technologies and systems. It's not enough to write about the client. Certainly, the client software is the part of the application that is the most visible to the customer, and it's the easiest to write about (authors can just repackage the same old stuff published about applications in general. Hung, Michael, and Bob do provide client-side guidance, but their goal is to provide information that is specific to Web applications. (For more generic material, you can read Testing Computer Software, Second Edition, Wiley, 1999.)

But client-side software is just the tip of the iceberg. The application displays itself to the end user as the client, but it does most of its work in conjunction with other software on the server-side, much of it written and maintained by third parties. For example, the application probably stores and retrieves data via third-party databases. If it sells products or services, it probably clears customer orders with the customer's credit card company. It might also check its distributor for available inventory and its shippers for the cost of shipping the software to the customer. The Web application communicates with these third parties through network connections written by third parties. Even the user interface is only partially under the application developer's control—the customer supplies the presentation layer: the browser, the music and ...