Testing has always been a part of software development. For decades, comprehensive testing was defined by complex manual test procedures backed by big budgets; but something revolutionary happened in 1998. In his Guide to Better Smalltalk, Smalltalk guru Kent Beck introduced an automated test framework called SUnit. This triggered an avalanche of test frameworks including JUnit, PyUnit, and many others for different languages and various platforms, dubbed the xUnit movement. Automated testing was made a cornerstone of the agile movement when 17 top software experts signed the Agile Manifesto in 2001.

Testing includes many different styles including unit testing, integration testing, acceptance testing, smoke testing, load testing, and countless others. This book digs in and explores testing at all the important levels while using the nimble power of Python. It also shows many tools.

This book is meant to expand your knowledge of testing from something you either heard about or have practiced a little into something you can apply at any level to meet your needs in improving software quality. I hope to give you the tools to reap huge rewards in better software development and customer satisfaction.