Seven essential places to dive into the fundamentals of software testing

The community often asks each other to share articles, talks and courses for someone new to testing. It can be overwhelming knowing where to start. Yet it doesn’t have to be that way.

Here are seven places to check out and share with those who want to go deeper into the fundamentals and essentials of software testing. All co-created with the incredible testing community.

  1. This one by Claire Reckless is full of gold. Absolute gold! So, What Is Software Testing?
  2. This is a definitive collection of essential information for any person looking to understand testing fundamentals: 99 Minute Workshops — Essentials
  3. This course is for those who prefer to learn via a course-based route:
    Essentials - Introduction to Software Development and Testing
  4. The Software Testing Clinic inspired this series. And there were excellent questions from the students who were new to testing. They just had to be answered: Questions From Students
  5. This reminded me of what makes a good tester and this article:
    What Makes A Good Software Tester
  6. And then I thought about the importance of all the foundational exploratory testing skills and approaches and this: A Really Useful List for Exploratory Testers
  7. And I completely forgot that there was an entire “Essentials” TestBash back in 2019. Here are all the talks: TestBash Essentials Brighton 2019

How about you, what would you add to this list? What fundamental information is out there that folks should familiarise themselves with?

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I’d add Elizabeth Hendrickson’s excellent book “Explore It!”.

Here’s a brief summary: Explore It? Explore It! - YouTube

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I came across this QA Cookbook, in a software testing Facebook group, seems pretty concise:

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There is also a Chrome plugin to help testers to record steps to reproduce: TestCase Studio - Chrome Web Store

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