I have been in web testing for 3.5 years and this was the first book I found on the subject. My only complaint is that it took so long to come out, but I won't hold that against Nguyen or Wiley. It is a superb introduction to the complexities of web testing, which despite the protests of standalone application testers, is much more difficult and technical than traditional application testing. Not only does the tester need to know the basics of application testing, he or she has to know about the complex technology behind the site or application, and Nguyen's book is unbeatable. I've recommended that everyone on my team read it, since they are all new to the art of web testing. I read it cover to cover and it didn't really cover anything I had not learned in 3.5 years of experience, but had it been published when I started, I would have been able to ramp up so much faster. I also recommend that application developers read it in order to understand the role of a tester and to develop professional respect for a much-maligned profession.

Grey box testing is based on a general understanding of a system's architecture and components. This understanding drives test strategy and identifies opportunities to test components in isolation.

The shade of grey can vary from white box testing (full review of source code) to black box testing (no review of source code). You choose what level of information to gather depending on your budget, capabilities and judgment.

This book provides the first detailed approach to grey box testing, focussing on web-based application architectures. These architectures are based on a heavy use of components: application servers, web servers, load balancers, databases and the like. This book describes these components, suggests how they can fail and what you can do to anticipate, trigger, or detect such failures.

This approach is supported by the author's extensive experience testing web-based (and other) applications as president of a software testing company. It is augmented by plenty of good advice on how to communicate test results clearly.

This is good book. If you test web apps, you should buy it.

Hung Nguyen and I are co-authors of another book and good friends. I am not an unbiased reviewer. On the other hand, I wouldn't write this review if I didn't believe every word of it.

Hung's book breaks new ground. It will be useful today, and I believe it will have lasting value and influence.

Once you get beyond the superficial (not unimportant, but much less difficult) issues of usability testing that dominate so many discussions of web testing, you run into the really tough problems of web application testing. Hung Nguyen's book is about those harder problems.

The web-based application runs on a wider range of platforms than any other type of program in history. It doesn't even have control over its presentation layer (the user supplies the browser and the multimedia plugins, and these applications might change any time). What will the application look like on the changed browser? The application probably also relies on third party databases (which can change any time), third party network connections (which can change any time), third party security systems and other access control (which can change any time), etc., etc. Almost anything in this system can change any time. How do you deal with a system that has so many unknowns?

Hung's view is that web application testers must learn more about the technical details of the systems and understand how external variables can interact (and fail) with the application under test.

To help testers learn about the interaction (and testing) of applications with other system components, he wrote the field's first book on grey box testing.

This book has substantial value for what it teaches us about testing on the web. Beyond that, it teaches about thinking clearly and thoroughly when your application interacts in complex ways with other systems. I think his approach will have lasting value and lasting influence long after many of the detailed issues that he describes have been resolved and replaced with new ones.

Along with the original approach, Hung gives a powerful real-world example. He is the president of a company that publishes a web-based bug tracking system. To illustrate the types of tests that you can run and the types of bugs you can find, he opened his records and described real tests, real bugs, and real testing problems. It's a rare treat to see a discussion of testing experience by someone who knows testing, who also intimately knows the software under test, and who isn't constrained in what he can say by a nondisclosure contract.

The mathematics described in this volume is valuable to, for example, medical imaging and reasoning about schedulability, which are relatively unrelated to the field in which the work was developed, namely surveillance of airborne military targets. Analysts working in fields where information of various kinds (e.g., measurements, correlations, and rules-of-thumb) influences an outcome will find herein a unifying mathematical mechanism. A very valuable book, its application can enable advances in many areas.

The Palace File should be number one on Hamid Karzai's reading list! The promises made in secret between one nation's leader and another have little value, it seems. Some would argue that such secret pledges should never be made by the elected leader of a true democracy. "Our" sincere pledges never to abandon an ally and never to waste the blood sacrifices of American troops are well-documented in The Palace File. The documents speak for themselves.

Those who doubt American staying power in the "war on terrorism" will find much ammunition for their arguments in a quick read of this sad tale of failed adventure in Vietnam. Our new but familiarly avid "nation builders" need to study The Palace File before they charge full-speed down the same slippery slope toward ignominy.

If you are looking for a book on Fuzzy Logic Theory, this is a good book. It explains the mathematical basis of fuzzy logic, the mathmatical symbols used, provides proofs for theorems, etc. The chapters and sections are clearly labeled in the table of contents, making it easy to zero in on a topic. It is a College Text Book, with problems to solve at the end of each chapter. Selected problems have answers in the back of the book. Unfortunately, that wasn't the type of book that I expected or needed. I was looking more for the hands on, how to, type of book. That is the only reason it did not get 5 stars.

This is the clearest explanation and application of fuzzy logic that has been published. It is thorough, without being arcane or pedantic.

This book has served as a foundational reference in establishing our SW testing framework and infastructure. It is extremely thorough and covers an incredible amount of topical areas pertaining to software testing and its methodology. Easy to read without excessive 'technospeak'. For anyone associated with, considering, or actively involved in software testing activities, this is a must. Goodbye Capers Jones, hello Cem Kaner!

This is probably one of the best books for learning software testing techniques. If you are new to software testing and don't have a "mentor" to teach you the techniques I would recommend this book, then check out some of the modern structured "risk-based" testing process books, such as Testing IT by John Watkins to get up-to-date on what has changed in the testing world since 1992.

One of the best computer books I have read. Very informative for software pros as well as novice software testers. Includes everything you need to know about testing and the National Software Testing Standards plus Dr. Kaner's legal comments. Lots of references to other publications. I believe it is a great time to republish this book with inclusion of the "Year 2000 software testing methodes". I would like to be first to know if authors decide to republish "Testing Computer Software".