Have now worked through Chapter 6 of the book, entitled ‘Tool Support for Testing’. This is another very comprehensive chapter, which took around 9 hours of studying, over a few days.

It covers the main topic of testing tools, describing in-depth the range of different types of tools, what they’re used for and the benefits and potential disadvanatages of using them. It covers the actual description/theory of each tool, rather than specific tools/software that may be in use. It finally concludes with a process to introduce testing tools into an organistion.

The topics covered are:

  • What is a test tool?
  • Test tools
  • Introducing a tool into an organisation

In order to understand just how many test tools there are, I’ve created two lists from the information in this Chapter, to help my learning/revision. The first list below covers all the test tools discussed in the Chapter, arranged by their ‘ISTQB Syllabus Classification. The list after that is these tools but arranged by ‘Most Likely Users’.

List of Tools by ISTQB Syllabus Classification

Classification: Management of Testing and Testing:

  • Test Management Tools
  • Incident Management Tools
  • Requirements Management Tools
  • Configuration Management Tools

Classification: Static Testing: 

  • Review Tools
  • Static Analysis Tools
  • Modelling Tools

Classification: Test Specification:

  • Test Design Tools/Script Generators
  • Test Oracles
  • Test (input) Data Preparation Tools

Classification: Test Execution and Logging:

  • Test Execution/Test Running Tools
  • Test Harness/Unit Test Framework Tools
  • Test Comparators
  • Coverage Measurement Tools
  • Security Tools

Classification: Performance and Monitoring:

  • Dynamic Analysis Tools
  • Performance Testing/Load Testing Tools
  • Performance Testing/Stress Testing Tools
  • Monitoring Tools

Classification: Data Quality 

  • Data Quality Assessment Tools

Classification: Usability 

  • Usability Tools

Classification: Other Tools 

  • Spreadsheets, SQL, Project Planning Tools, Resource Planning Tools, Debugging Tools

List of Tools arranged by ‘Most Likely Users’ 

Users: Business Analyst 

  • Requirements Management Tools

Users: Testers

  • Test Management Tools
  • Incident Management Tools
  • Test Design Tools/Script Generators
  • Test Oracles
  • Test Execution/Test Running Tools

Users: Developers 

  • Static Analysis Tools
  • Modelling Tools
  • Test Harnesses/Unit Test Framework Tools
  • Coverage Management Tools
  • Dynamic Analysis Tools
  • Debugging Tools

Users: Testers and Developers 

  • Test Comparators

Users: Various 

  • Incident Management Tools
  • Requirements Management Tools
  • Configuration Management Tools
  • Review Tool
  • Test (input) Data Preparation Tools
  • Monitoring Tools
  • Data Quality Assessment Tools
  • Spreadsheets, SQL, Project Planning Tools, Resource Planning Tools

Users: Specialists 

  • Security Tools
  • Performance Testing Tools
  • Usability Tools