Perl Testing: A Developer's Notebook : A Developer's Notebook

Is there any sexier topic in software development than software testing? That is, besides game programming, 3D graphics, audio, high-performance clustering, cool websites, et cetera? Okay, so software testing is low on the list. And that's unfortunate, because good software testing can increase your productivity, improve your designs, raise your quality, ease your maintenance burdens, and help to satisfy your customers, coworkers, and managers.Perl has a strong history of automated tests. A very early release of Perl 1.0 included a comprehensive test suite, and it's only improved from there. Learning how Perl's test tools work and how to put them together to solve all sorts of previously intractable problems can make you a better programmer in general. Besides, it's easy to use the Perl tools described to handle all sorts of testing problems that you may encounter, even in other languages.Like all titles in O'Reilly's Developer's Notebook series, this "all lab, no lecture" book skips the boring prose and focuses instead on a series of exercises that speak to you instead of at you.__Perl Testing: A Developer's Notebook__Write basic Perl tests with ease and interpret the resultsApply special techniques and modules to improve your testsBundle test suites along with projectsTest databases and their dataTest websites and web projectsUse the "Test Anything Protocol" which tests projects written in languages other than PerlWith today's increased workloads and short development cycles, unit tests are more vital to building robust, high-quality software than ever before. Once mastered, these lessons will help you ensure low-level code correctness, reduce software development cycle time, and ease maintenance burdens.You don't have to be a die-hard free and open source software developer who lives, breathes, and dreams Perl to use this book. You just have to want to do your job a little bit better. Is there any sexier topic in software development than software testing? That is, besides game programming, 3D graphics, audio, high-performance clustering, cool websites, et cetera? Okay, so software testing is low on the list. And that's unfortunate, because good software testing can increase your productivity, improve your designs, raise your quality, ease your maintenance burdens, and help to satisfy your customers, coworkers, and managers. Perl has a strong history of automated tests. A very early release of Perl 1.0 included a comprehensive test suite, and it's only improved from there. Learning how Perl's test tools work and how to put them together to solve all sorts of previously intractable problems can make you a better programmer in general. Besides, it's easy to use the Perl tools described to handle all sorts of testing problems that you may encounter, even in other languages. Like all titles in O'Reilly's Developer's Notebook series, this "all lab, no lecture" book skips the boring prose and focuses instead on a series of exercises that speak to you instead of at you. Perl Testing: A Developer's Notebook will help you dive right in and: Write basic Perl tests with ease and interpret the results Apply special techniques and modules to improve your tests Bundle test suites along with projects Test databases and their data Test websites and web projects Use the "Test Anything Protocol" which tests projects written in languages other than Perl With today's increased workloads and short development cycles, unit tests are more vital to building robust, high-quality software than ever before. Once mastered, these lessons will help you ensure low-level code correctness, reduce software development cycle time, and ease maintenance burdens. You don't have to be a die-hard free and open source software developer who lives, breathes, and dreams Perl to use this book. You just have to want to do your job a little bit better. ix xiii Beginning Testing 1 5 7 10 12 15 Writing Tests 19 22 23 25 30 34 37 Managing Tests 39 43 48 51 53 55 56 Distributing Your Tests (and Code) 61 63 66 68 69 72 73 76 79 Testing Untestable Code 83 88 92 97 102 106 Testing Databases 109 113 117 121 Testing Web Sites 127 132 135 138 141 143 149 Unit Testing with Test::Class 151 155 158 160 162 Testing Everything Else 163 167 169 172 175 Good software testing can increase productivity, improve designs, raise quality, and make you more productive overall. This hands-on labs series teaches how Perl's test tools work and how to use them to create basic and complex tests and interpret the results. This notebook is helpful in reducing the software development cycle times. Looks at the Perl test tools and offers a series of exercises that cover such topics as bundling test suites, testing databases, and testing Web sites and projects.