Book Review - JavaScript Testing Beginner's Guide

Disclaimer: I received a digital review copy of this book from the publisher, Packt Publishing.

This time I will be taking a look at "JavaScript Testing Beginner's Guide" by Liang Yuxian Eugene. As can be inferred from the title, the book is a part of Packt's "for beginners" series. In this case this means you can pretty much dive in without any specific JavaScript or testing related knowledge. The examples are explained with quite a bit of detail.

Impressions

The book starts from the very basics and after that explores various testing related issues including validation, testing plans, debugging and testing tools. As the book progresses you will encounter various tools you may find handy.

In addition the book provides a nice overview of testing tools not covered. This is something I missed in my earlier reviews of Packt's books so it's nice to see progress on this department.

I think the book manages to cover its subject well. The book feels balanced and easy to follow. People already familiar with the basic concepts will probably find some parts a bit redundant but it's easy enough to skip those and focus on the juicy parts.

I liked the way the author interspersed theory with the practical examples. This makes it much easier for the reader to reason about the concepts discussed compared to approach focusing only on examples.

There were times when sentence structures used felt a bit clunky. There were also some typos around. These issues probably aren't a deal breaker for most of people but still something worth mentioning.

Verdict

Overall I think the book provides good value. This is true particularly for those new to testing and/or JavaScript. More experienced people might be able to glean some nuggets of information and fill some gaps in their knowledge.

If you are interested in the book, I highly recommend checking out the freely available chapter and articles [1][2][3] to get a better impression of the book.