Much like in software, when you release a book into the hands of the masses it is largely out of your control. Part of the lack-of-control with a book is the review process where you send out free copies to people who have a platform in hopes they give it a nice review (thus garnering more interest and sales). I’ve been doing this the last week for Beautiful Testing and I get books sent to me periodically. James Whittaker’s Exploratory Software Testing is one such book that landed in my mailbox, but the review is not going to be positive.

Lack of control sucks.

I really wanted to like this book. Exploratory testing is an extremely powerful technique which is largely passed from person-to-person rather than through books. This lack of textbook presence keeps it out of University curriculums. But when reading it, the only word I kept thinking of was cheat.

At its core, Exploratory Software Testing is about the useful metaphor of a tester as a tourist and the software their destination. An application, like a city, can be broken down into a number of districts (business, historical, tourist, entertainment, hotel and seedy) and for each district a number of ‘tours’ can be had (guidebook, money, landmark, intellectual, fedex, after-hours and garbage collectors for the business district for example). This metaphor is fantastically developed and is quite useful in developing a testing strategy.

But is that metaphor enough to justify a book? No. Not really. I wouldn’t dream of pitching SLIME as an entire book though I think it is just as useful to keep in mind as being a tourist. More on that in a second.

But first…

I took James Bach’s Rapid Software Testing August of 2005 (during hurricane Katrina) and during it there was a discussion of ‘tours’ you can take through an application. Specifically Mike Kelly’s FCC CUTS VIDS was mentioned. Mr. Whittaker joined Microsoft in 2006 and started to develop the idea of tours of there (on the soccer pitch according to Alan Page who did the Foreword) which ultimately culminated in this book. Now, there is nothing wrong with taking an idea and evolving it. We’ve all done it. But when you do that, you are obligated to say that is what you did and to cite the sources. The lack of background material in Exploratory Testing is a concern. Not only is there no mention of people who did work on the Testing-as-Touring idea, but there is no mention of people who are known thought leaders in exploratory testing. You mean to say you can write a book on exploratory testing without mentioning James or Jon Bach, Cem Kaner or Michael Bolton? Really? What does that do to your credibility on the subject?

The lack of citation is actually not my biggest criticism of Exploratory Testing. Like I said, I think the metaphor is wonderful and a useful addition of testing lore. My biggest complaint is that the book even got published.

Exploratory Software Testing is 224 pages in length and if we operate on the premise that the tour metaphor is the main focus of the book then it should be the majority of the content. Right? Well, James’ work on it lasts for 39 pages (chapters 4 and 5). Total. In fact, the original work ends on page 143 at which point he reprints a bunch of StickyMinds articles and his MSDN blog for the remainder. Even that content before the reprints isn’t all his. The chapter after the tour metaphor is finished is mini-essays (34 pages) by people inside Microsoft who have used tours successfully on their project.

In short, there isn’t enough content to warrant publishing a book that retails for $39.99 USD ($47.99 CDN). Take the tour metaphor one more step and bind it as a pocket tourist guide that sells for $15 and you have a winner. But for this price and packaging, unless you have an unlimited book budget, I can’t recommend that you pick it up. Eventually someone will post a description of each district and its tour and a few minutes of google-fu will give you the same value and still have enough money in your pocket for a week’s work the lunches.

Having been through the book process once this feels a lot like the publisher saw that they could sell a bunch of books based on the author having had successful books in the past and a title that is somewhat misleading but popular in their target audience’s lexicon rather than producing something of lasting value.

Here is another thing from the publishing world; they really don’t like publishing a book with the same(-ish) title as an existing one. Especially in the same subject matter space. It is a shame that this book is what will forever carry the mantle for exploratory testing.