As mentioned in previous post, I got possibility to review Robot Framework Test Automation -book written by Sumit Bisht. I actually finished the reading already in December, but remembered to write review now.I was quite keen to get the book, because I really haven't read much "IT things" from books, but directly from Internet. Same thing with Robot Framework (RF). Same time I also have acknowledged, that even though RF id kind of advertised to be for the non-technical people, too, the material is offering both worlds (technical and non-technical).
So, about the book. First, when I opened the book (got PDF version) I was quite surprised how short it is (99 pages). And this was even bigger surprise, that there's only about half of the book for the "beginners" (meaning: for "non-developers" in a sense). Other half is briefly labeled being about extending framework, and last 20 pages are reserved for index and advertisements.
The chapters from 1 to 3 and 5 offer new RF users brief introduction to framework and how it can be used in different ways (different test file forms, different ways to initialize variables etc.). Also some things about good way to write automated tests. Problem might be, that there's time to time more little details than flowing text, which might be hard for non-technical or non-experienced user of RF.
Personally I have used RF almost more as Java implementation than with Python (because of it's easier integration to CI with Maven). There was some mentions in the book about Java-version, but nothing about Maven. Also CI usage was mentioned once in reporting chapter. Yes, CI server can collect reports, but more important part is that it can run the tests. And setting up that run would have been more useful than mentioning (normal) functionality of CI server being able to store old builds.
From here we get to the most problematic chapter, number 4, which is "Extending the Framework". Chapter actually just lists couple of libraries that are made for Robot Framework, and not really "extension writing" which I was expecting. 2 biggest problems with the data provided (if we forget extension writing part at this point) was Selenium2Library (no mentions, that normal version doesn't work with Java, or that there's different version to be used with Jython and Maven builds) and Sikuli (almost half of the chapter telling how to test with it or create custom Sikuli library).
Finally I'd say that book might be good for some people to get overview about RF, but rel usage can't be done with that being only source of information.
