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Perl Testing: 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 A Developer's Notebook will help you dive right in 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.
200 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 2005
5 people are currently reading
29 people want to read
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Displaying 1 - 10 of 10 reviews
November 8, 2012
I bought this book for two reasons: to learn more about testing in general and to learn any Perl-specific secrets (e.g., http://modernperlbooks.com/mt/2009/04... ).
The book is very enjoyable. The general information on testing is easily applied in other languages. There is something of Perl secrets in the book (mainly modules I didn't know existed).
Overall, however, what stands out most is the long list of dirty tricks (e.g., adding entries to %INC to prevent the loading of a module, replacing the builtin exit function with *CORE::GLOBAL::exit = sub { ... }) and mucking around with lesser-known aspects of the language (e.g., "use" statements are executed at compile time, so you can check if a module can be imported by wrapping the use statement with string eval and checking for errors). I've personally found Perl's minimal object oriented machinery fascinating because of what is exposed and how maleable that makes the language. This book convinced me that the depth of my ignorance on the subject is incredible.
The book is easy to follow, and shows decent coding practices for 2006 (a second edition would need to discuss testing objects created by Moose or a similar module, interacting with the database through DBIx::Class, testing websites that use Catalyst, etc.). I have no problem recommending it to anyone, but only in conjunction with a book like Modern Perl or Perl Best Practices.
The book is very enjoyable. The general information on testing is easily applied in other languages. There is something of Perl secrets in the book (mainly modules I didn't know existed).
Overall, however, what stands out most is the long list of dirty tricks (e.g., adding entries to %INC to prevent the loading of a module, replacing the builtin exit function with *CORE::GLOBAL::exit = sub { ... }) and mucking around with lesser-known aspects of the language (e.g., "use" statements are executed at compile time, so you can check if a module can be imported by wrapping the use statement with string eval and checking for errors). I've personally found Perl's minimal object oriented machinery fascinating because of what is exposed and how maleable that makes the language. This book convinced me that the depth of my ignorance on the subject is incredible.
The book is easy to follow, and shows decent coding practices for 2006 (a second edition would need to discuss testing objects created by Moose or a similar module, interacting with the database through DBIx::Class, testing websites that use Catalyst, etc.). I have no problem recommending it to anyone, but only in conjunction with a book like Modern Perl or Perl Best Practices.
November 25, 2013
I've been perl coder for number of years and I've never written single line of test code to any of my perl scripts.
I recently involved in a project which required us to create number of components for automation and I was kind of wondering how things would be different if I've written tests for these components.
Then I found this book. I'm happy after reading it. It made me understand how easy to write tests for Perl code using its extensive test libraries.
So, anyone wants to get a kind of crash course, read this book and play with example/lab code, you won't regret it.
I recently involved in a project which required us to create number of components for automation and I was kind of wondering how things would be different if I've written tests for these components.
Then I found this book. I'm happy after reading it. It made me understand how easy to write tests for Perl code using its extensive test libraries.
So, anyone wants to get a kind of crash course, read this book and play with example/lab code, you won't regret it.
April 28, 2008
The unique book for Testing Eng. If you use Perl programming language as one of the tool for developing software application/any tool - you better go through this book if not exposed to any QA techniques.
In terms of books - only book which talks about testing using Perl modules.
Yup - there are some good slides available on slideshare.net which does talk about Test Driven Development.
This book was very useful for me when i had to work for Yahoo as a QA eng.
In terms of books - only book which talks about testing using Perl modules.
Yup - there are some good slides available on slideshare.net which does talk about Test Driven Development.
This book was very useful for me when i had to work for Yahoo as a QA eng.
January 1, 2016
It's a nice and hands-on introduction to Perl testing. Content is a bit dated though (published in 2005) and spends much time on technologies not really used anymore, like Apache mod_perl in the web testing section.
It would be nice to see a new edition covering modern Perl techniques and frameworks.
It would be nice to see a new edition covering modern Perl techniques and frameworks.
January 10, 2008
I started reading this for work, and it was an actually enjoyable, albeit technical read.
The authors, Ian Langworth and chromatic approach the topic with both zeal and a deep technical understanding of the needs of people writing PERL code.
The authors, Ian Langworth and chromatic approach the topic with both zeal and a deep technical understanding of the needs of people writing PERL code.
August 4, 2008
A no-nonsense approach for getting down the basics of testing with Perl. Reads and functions almost like a workbook. A must if you are working with large Perl projects that incorporate functional or unit tests.
skipped
August 26, 2009Aimed at testing perl scripts, not testing using perl--that's why I didn't rate it. It might be good at what it's covering, but that wasn't what I was expecting.
October 12, 2010
Explains 'how to' well enough, bit low on the 'why'… it does admit to being a purely practical approach to testing in the introduction.
May 31, 2014
This is a good primer for getting into Perl testing.
April 6, 2016
Here's a metric: pages with corners folded for Relevant Applicability, 6. This is a book with tips for Perl used to test, even outside the scope of Perl code.
Displaying 1 - 10 of 10 reviews