Google, who's user base has been estimated as high as 1.5 billion accross it's suite of products by some, and who's products dominate the internet, recently released a new book "How Google Tests Software" revealing exactly how Google tests software, offering brand-new best practices.
Authors James Whittaker, Jason Arbon and Jeff Carollo offer the folowing insights on testing at Google:
On how testing at Google is different from Microsoft:
"At Google, testing is owned by everyone on the development team. Developers have to take responsibility for their unit tests and testers take responsibility for making developers productive testers. It’s not a dev-test model; everyone is a tester at Google."
On testing Web based Software Vs. All Other Types the Authors point out that all software is created equal, accepting input, producint output, storing data, and doing computation. Google utiliazes crowd source testing to great effect, at the end of the day the same problems are universal in testing.
According to the book Google beleives that testers are much more effective when also being able to code, expanding their impact. Another huge part of testing at Google involves having the developers perform self-service testing (described in the book).
As far as security is concerned, the Authors reflect that horizontals like security apply everywhere, but require special knowledge and skillset.
Google Tests Software is great book which will benifit Automated Testers, Dev, and Program Management, contains real code, and talks about real automation efforts. The book is available from Amazon Here.
