Who Should Read this tutorial

Although this tutorial speaks from an XP perspective, you need not practice XP to benefit from it. Anyone who needs help automating testing and integration can benefit from the tools and practices outlined herein. If you know nothing about Extreme Programming, you should probably read the rest of this Introduction, along with to get a sense of the practices covered in this tutorial, both alone and in their XP context. In particular the Introduction touches on the value of automated testing and continuous integration for all developers.

This tutorial assumes you are at least a moderately experienced Java developer. Because it covers the app of testing and integration tools to the J2EE platform, this tutorial also expects familiarity with J2EE technologies and development practices. Those who are not interested in J2EE apps will still find plenty of worthwhile material, because most of these tools can be applied to almost any Java (or, in the case of JMeter and HttpUnit, even non-Java) software project. Developers who aren't familiar with J2EE but who want to apply these tools and techniques to a J2EE app may also want to pick up a comprehensive J2EE tutorial like Expert One-on-One: J2EE Design and Development by Rod Johnson.