Book review Quicktest Professional Unplugged

Introduction
After unpacking the book, it smiled to me in a pretty color setting, although, it reminded me on my times working at ABN AMRO. The cover shows the well known picture of the QTP splash window. The book is quite large, approximately 20x30cm and contains around 430 pages. The pages are all printed in black and white (well, the white was not printed, it was more the property of the paper itself). It is build up into chapters, and the book does have a table of contents and an index.


Content
The first thing that you’ll notice is lots of sample code. This comes in two ways: Code that supports the text and code that belongs to the challenges at the end of each chapter. The book is mainly written in a the first person plural form, so you will never be addressed personally, making the book somewhat formal. Nevertheless, it is an easy read. The layout is open and organized. Each chapter handles one subject and is providing you an introduction to this subject justifying why it is included in the book. Then it hops directly to the matter. At the end of each chapter is room for your own notes.

Most of the subjects are not new, and can be found over the web, the QTP help file and documentation provided by Mercury/HP, but it is very helpful to have it packed in one complete book and only the –no need to search anymore- property makes it worthwhile owning this book alone. When I have to cover a new subject during my daily work, I peek into the applicable chapter which brings me on track in no time. The text and the code sticks very to the matter, meaning it is all about solving low level problems you’ll encounter by coding your automated tests.

It does not describe test methodologies or how to build a test framework. Well, actually there is a chapter “Designing Frameworks”, but it is more a guideline and best practices enumeration. Also you’ll not find examples dealing the problems of a virtual donut shop or remote control. Tarun Lalwani writes: “This book is targeted at automation engineers who want to exploit the power that QTP offers…” and I think that is a very good description of the book. The sample code is of high level, sometimes too extensive. Programming experience is necessary to extract the full potential of it.

Conclusion
QuickTest Professional Unplugged is a very comprehensive book written by experience. It is full of handy sample code and neat tricks. Each chapter will provide you with one or more “I didn’t know that!” experiences. The book is created for a small audience, but for this particular audience it is certainly a must have.