Swing Extreme Testing Book Review

Swing Extreme Testing Book Review

Swing used to be a simple component offered as an add-on for Java. This plug-in can be used as a GUI (graphical user interface) to develop as an add-on for the Java application. It has the ability to emulate certain platforms eventually building a powerful application. With this plug-in, users will experience the full potential of Java as it uses its native capability and with the help of Swing, different web development languages are added to the application. Swing’s ability to emulate eventually made this plug-in one of the most popular and important tools in Java development that it eventually became part of Java development package.

The challenge for developers with swing though is testing its components. Testing is one of the fundamental steps in application development and apparently, testing Swing has become a challenge for developers. By itself swing is very easy to test but since it is used as an emulator, it is often changed according to the needs of the application. Changes in the application are common during the development process and swing has to adjust to these changes – eventually testing its components a little bit harder.

This book aims to answer those questions and guide the developers on properly testing the Swing plug-ins in as little time as possible. This book will deal with a very important testing technique: automation. Through automation, testing will be faster and development will eventually be easier.

The Authors

Packt Publishing is known for writers who are not only knowledgeable of the theories behind applications development but are also practitioners of the languages discussed. Tim Lavers and Lindsay Peters are renowned authors of Packt Publishing. The authors possess in-depth knowledge and have eventually gained remarkable experience in Java. Tim Lavers is known for his expertise in Swing and the development of “GrandTestAuto”. Lindsay Peters on the other hand has always been with the development language since it was first conceived. Peters further pushed the boundaries of Java eventually building Java through Extreme Programming development model. These writers also came not only with years but decades of experience in applications development – being with different development projects since the 80s. Combined, they come with more than 50 years of experience in applications development.

Both writers have also written a couple of papers related to mathematics. They are currently working for Pacific Knowledge Systems.

Chapters

The book has only 300 pages but divided into a whooping 20 chapters. Expect information packed chapters right from the start. The authors have practically squeezed all possible information with regards to testing and eventually in testing in Swing.

Chapters 1 to 3 deal with the fundamentals of testing. Like any good book it starts by pointing out the importance of testing. But don’t expect the discussion will all be theories in these chapters. Tips on what should and should not be tested are being discussed here in great lengths. Source codes and screen shots are also available in these chapters especially on chapter three the authors discusses the infrastructure that will be used for testing. As expected, the fundamental discussion for testing the application is geared towards testing of Swing.

Chapters 4 to 10 deal with the specifics of Swing testing. The authors have opted to use a specific tool for testing Swing. Although you might think that it could be biased towards that testing tool right from the start, the authors have apparently used this tool to show the general interface that developers will encounter while developing the application. Take note that each major component of Swing will be discussed. The authors believe that some components in Swing do not require testing and it will be discussed in these chapters as well.

Chapters 11 to 13 discuss the additional components of testing Swing. The expected threads and logging requirements for Swing is discussed in these chapters. This chapter will also discuss integration of additional languages especially when the application is developed to be an online application. These three chapters will explain three separate components and when combined, these components will assist the developer in testing Swing with components that will ensure the proper outcome of testing.

Chapter 14 is one of the special chapters of the book since it aims to discuss in detail how can Swing be tested when combined with external components. Components such as Email and other types of documents are discussed here in the light of integration with Swing. This is very important for Swing since as a plug-in it will not only deal with the original application but it will eventually become the gateway for different files and applications (aside from the original Java application). Certain methods are being discussed in this chapter to enlighten the developers of the pros and cons of different techniques.

Chapter 15 is another special chapter because of its discussion of user interface placed in server-side classes. In this chapter, developers will learn how to integrate the functions of the user to the server side which will provide a very strong support for the user. The experience may not be the same like those in Ajax-enabled application but with the help of Swing and Java, this experience might be supported and even more. This chapter will discuss its difference and how to implement the user component in server side classes.

Chapters 16 to 20 discusses the different types of tests that should be done on Swing to ensure that the plug in will work as expected. As we have previously stated, testing automation will be discussed in great lengths in this book and these chapters will certainly deal with a lot of automation. Developers should be able to see different source codes so that they could implement testing on Swing based on the applications need. A special chapter is also added to discuss one of the tools developed by one of the authors – the “GrandTestAuto”. The book ends with a chapter discussing “Flaky Tests” which could be used in testing Swing in different levels.

Book’s Intended Audience

Clearly this book is not for beginners of Java. The language is extensively discussed in this book but as integration for Swing. Developers of Swing should find this book extremely helpful because the book just does not discuss the Swing testing in theory but also in practice. There are a lot of source codes in this book that could be used by developers as a reference to build an interesting testing tool for their plug in. This book is practically a gateway for developers in building complicated applications using Java and Swing.

Conclusion

Swing Extreme Testing proves that there is an aggressive approach in testing Swing as a plug-in for Java applications. Don’t be fooled by Swing’s GUI since without the knowledge of the actual coding of the components of the GUI, you will be lost right at the start. This book will try to explain the source code associated with Swing and how to build tools that could test Swing and push the capacity of the plug-in. Although it might warrant a little bit more explanation, this book should be more than enough for a developer who understands Swing and the components that comes with it in order to build an efficient application.

Read Sample Chapter 9 - Case Study: Testing a 'Save as' Dialog

This book is available for purchase at packtpub.com Swing Extreme Testing