In the authors' experience, sharing testing and development tasks is a viable option when the test staff can architect the tests. However, it requires the full support of everyone involved–testers, developers, and managers. All staff members must be committed to delivering a high-quality product and have a common vision of how to achieve this goal. Suzan Noden and Jennifer Mingee describe their experience sharing testing tasks with development.

Some programs must handle network errors, file system errors, and the like. Testing their error handling manually can be tedious and time consuming. Relying on accidental errors is unreliable and uncontrollable. Learn about a method for simulating errors that makes the process automated and flexible.

Web applications provide platforms so wide open that they defy the very structure and predictability that make test automation feasible. Object names are optional, can be duplicated, and may change at a moment's notice. Page layouts can change between and within builds. This wicked combination makes test automation even more difficult, if not downright impossible. Linda Hayes explains the importance of unique, consistent object names in Web development.

A look at the HTML source code behind Web sites can often reveal security issues that would never be uncovered by those blissfully ignorant of the code. This bug report will examine two common methods of maintaining state and passing data in Web-based systems–hidden form fields and the HTTP GET method–and demonstrate some of the associated security risks through an examination of HTML code.