Beautiful Testing

Beautiful Testing is about testing and how it is beautiful. That's not too surprising or really that interesting on first examination. What will be interesting is how various people who work in and around software measure and see be beauty.

This will be the 3rd (or 4th depending on publication schedules) in the Beautiful series from O'Reilly and is edited by Adam Goucher and Tim Riley (of Mozilla).

One thing that is inherited from the Beautiful Series is the compensation scheme. Essentially, there is no compensation for neither the editors nor contributors. Any profits from the book will be donated to Nothing But Nets who helps distribute mosquito nets to people in Africa to protect people from Malaria.

Here are some things to consider when writing a chapter

• Is it about testing?
• Are you expressing how it is beautiful?
• Beauty is not skin deep
• Chapters are essentially expressions of opinion. There will likely be lots of contradictions in the book as a whole (or so we hope)

Here are the timelines as they stand now.

• Contributors give a quick abstract / proposal (so we don't accidentally end up with 10 of the same thing) - Now
• Everyone signs contracts - Now + 1
• 2 Chapters to O'Reilly by February 15, 2009
• 50% of the chapters by March 15, 2009
• Complete draft: April 30, 2009
• Comments back from O'Reilly by May 31, 2009 (and consequently to contributors)
• Complete and final manuscript on June 30, 2009
• Fret and worry until ~ September, 2009
• Watch with fascination the Amazon rankings September, 2009 onward
• Prevent deaths from Malaria starting Sepetember 2009 onward

The liaison for Beautiful Testing at O'Reilly is Mary Treseler (contact details available on request rather than in a public wiki).

Marketing for the book is TBD.

Thoughts on Beautiful and/or Testing:

• Eva Zeisel: The playful search for beauty

Please create your abstract below; the names are alphabetical here and will almost guaranteed to be different in the final book. The actual people might also change as life intervenes.

• ScottBarber
  • Current Status - Abstract Done
• Barry and Quim
  • Current Status - Abstract done
• RexBlack
  • Current Status - Abstract done
• David Bolter/Marco Zehe
  • Current Status - Abstract Done
• MichaelBolton
  • Current Status -
• Emily Chen and Brian Nitz
  • Current Status - Abstract done
• MelChua
  • Current Status - Abstract done
• IsaacClerencia
  • Current Status - Abstract done
• John Cook
  • Abstract
  • Draft Chapter.
  • Current Status - Draft of chapter completed, reviewed, and feedback comments rolled in!
• LisaCrispin
  • Current Status - abstract done, would really love some feedback on the abstract before I start a draft? Anyone? Pls. help?
• MichaelDonat
  • Current Status - Abstract done
• MattHeusser
  • Current Status - Draft of chapter is done
• KarennJohnson
  • Current Status
• KamranKhan
  • Current Status - Abstract done
  • Thoughts on "beautiful testing"
• TomaszKojm
  • Current Status - Abstract done
• BrianMarick
  • Current Status -
• Jeb Miller
  • Current Status - Awaiting abstract
• MuraliNandigama
  • Current Status -
• HungNguyen
  • Current Status -
• NealNorwitz (and Michelle Levesque , Jeffrey Yasskin)
  • Current Status - Abstract done
• AlanPage
  • Current Status - Abstract done
• MarcoPesentiGritti
  • Current Status - Abstract Done
• MartinSchroeder
  • Current Status - Abstract done
• ClintTalbert
  • Current Status - Chapter draft is done and reviewed
• RemkoTroncon
  • Current Status - Abstract done
• Jim Walker - Test Framworks
  • Current Status - Abstract done
• Jim Walker - Test Farm
  • Current Status - Abstract done
• LindaWilkinson
  • Current Status - Abstract done
• AndreasZeller
  • Current Status - Abstract TBD