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Reviewer: Coskun Bayrak

Since software development requires curiosity, creativity, and commitment, the end product of this is nothing but an art, of which testing is the soul. This entire book is about testing. It seems to be the only comprehensive treatment of designing test suites and test automation for object-oriented software that is directed to software developers, and specifically to system software engineers. Many books and papers address the subject of testing. However, questions such as why, when, and how we test have never been analyzed as thoroughly as they are here. The aim of testing is to provide reliability, and thus to control the time and cost of software development. Since testing is a method of analyzing logical and functional behavior, it is performed during the development process. However, these issues are not as simple as they seem. The author's message, based on the approach taken in this book, seems to be that testing should be less thorough yet more efficient. This can be accomplished only if testing can be applied in a well-managed, empirical manner across the software development life cycle. This well-written (and almost self-contained) book is divided into four comprehensive parts, plus one appendix and a nearly exhaustive bibliography. The author explains the preliminaries of testing in detail, including some mathematical derivations; describes aspects of it from a conceptual perspective; and supplies the necessary techniques for an analysis of the complex and important nature of testing. The book covers, simply but rigorously, the fundamentals of modeling and the dynamics of testing in object-oriented software. It begins with the basics of simple object-oriented systems and progresses, in a sequence of well-planned and easy-to-read steps, toward the complex ideas involved in testing these systems. After covering the basics of object-oriented technology and testing, Binder considers their theoretical relevance, emphasizing models and their role in testing. Thus, he not only brings the complex dynamics associated with testing to the attention of software engineers, but also presents its relevance to object-oriented software development. The steps needed for building rigorous test patterns for reliable systems are explained clearly. The discussion of the role of decision tables and state machines and their importance for modeling responsibility test cases is interesting and quite useful. Binder emphasizes that testing is an integral part of software engineering, and the use of object-oriented technology does not diminish its importance. Therefore, he outlines and presents a strategy for efficient and effective testing in object-oriented systems. The book's format makes it suitable for readers at all levels, from introductory to advanced. Thus, it should be read by software engineers who want to widen their vision of the static and dynamic richness of the software that they design, build, operate, and control, especially object-oriented software. It should also be of considerable interest to system engineers seeking to widen their perspective on practical applications. I can only commend the author on an excellent addition to the literature on the applications of testing to object-oriented systems. I can fully recommend this book to professionals, faculty and students in the field, and others who are interested in systems and software engineering.