Software Testing

Software Testing is the book for new or aspiring software testers interested in learning about this crucial part of the software development process. The complexity and size of today's software makes writing bug-free code extremely difficult, even for highly experienced programmers. Couple that with our increasing reliance on software for performing everyday tasks and its pervasiveness in the medical, telecommunications, manufacturing, and financial industries, and a software bug can spell disaster. Quality software can't be created with an ad- hoc, part-time, bug hunt. It requires a methodical and disciplined approach to preventing, finding, and reporting bugs. Software Testing will show you what it takes to be a successful software tester, assuring that you discover those nasty bugs before your customers do.

Ron Patton lives and works in Washington state as a software consultant. His software testing experience is wide and varied from mission- critical systems to children's painting programs. He began his career at Texas Instruments as a quality assurance engineer testing embedded systems and user interface software for industrial automation equipment. In 1992 he joined Microsoft as a software test lead in the Systems Group. His test projects included Multimedia Viewer, the authoring tool used to develop Encarta®, Cinemania®, and Bookshelf®,. and He eventually moved on to become responsible for the software that shipsped with the mouse, keyboard, gaming, telephony, and ActiMates® product lines.