Comments on: Why are we embarrassed to admit that we don’t know how to write tests?

By: Sarthak

Sarthak — Mon, 13 Jul 2009 19:09:21 +0000

I know developers who think that unit testing is not their responsibility… Also, testing team sometimes writes unit tests and sometimes just does black box testing (depending on their schedule) …. so by the time the testing team receives the code, its so hard to test, that testing team generally writes one full blown integration test… So if the developers dont write unit tests anytime, how would they come across any pains… the right thing to do is have the developer write some tests… I am of the opinion that the developers should do majority of the testing using Unit Testing/Functional testing/Integration Testing … and only some of the black-box testing should be left to plain QA…

By: Random Links #9 | YASDW - yet another software developer weblog

Random Links #9 | YASDW - yet another software developer weblog — Mon, 13 Jul 2009 17:01:04 +0000

[...] Why are we embarrassed to admit that we don’t know how to write tests? Was ist jetzt wirklich genau testbarer Code? [...]

By: fqqdk

fqqdk — Fri, 10 Jul 2009 12:42:40 +0000

And coding without having tests in place is just like religious fundamentalism

By: fqqdk

fqqdk — Fri, 10 Jul 2009 12:40:46 +0000

Reasoning about code is just like reasoning about a scientific theory, and tests are just like experiments. Experiments should be repeatable, just like tests.
If the predictions of a scientific theory cannot be validated with experiments, then it is a useless theory, and if tests are hard to write, because the code is untestable then that code is bad. QED.

By: Sridhar visvanath

Sridhar visvanath — Fri, 10 Jul 2009 06:46:54 +0000

Also, from the nice red-green-refactoring rhythm…we then focus on code smells…and refactoring…and start looking at our code like we had never done before…It is an enlightening…eye-opening experience

By: Sridhar visvanath

Sridhar visvanath — Fri, 10 Jul 2009 06:45:23 +0000

I do not think we can word it any better. I face it everyday in my workplace…it is like trying to communicate to someone who cannot understand your language…I feel testability is actually not just about testability…it just scratches the surface…we all had our old way of thinking about coding…that forces us to sort of be in a coding camp vs testing camp…It takes an actual medium-complex program excercise, a lot of patience and a lot of hand holding to learn to write testable code…and then go on to the nice Red-Green-Refactoring rhythm…I do not think it can be explained to people…it has to be felt like a spiritual excercise…once we get the Aha feeling…then that is when we cannot go back…

By: Tomek

Tomek — Thu, 09 Jul 2009 20:37:49 +0000

@Arjun The testability guide is like “Working effectively with legacy code” but the guide is much shorter read.

By: misko

misko — Thu, 09 Jul 2009 13:44:48 +0000

@Arjun,

I don’t have any book to recommend, but you can start with the testability guide: http://misko.hevery.com/code-reviewers-guide/

By: Arjun

Arjun — Thu, 09 Jul 2009 10:50:09 +0000

Hi,
I recently happen to bump into your blogs and from that day i have been following, must say it was a great find for me. its been an 2 years now that i have been working as a software developer and I admit that I haven’t been the writing unit tests , worse actually never followed TDD at all . My question is that how one can develop the skill of writing Testable Code. Do you have any name of some of the books or links where practical examples on how to write testable code are shown (Some of your own experiences)? Can you share it.

Many thanks,
~Arjun

By: Tomek

Tomek — Thu, 09 Jul 2009 06:27:49 +0000

Wow! So straight to the point! Congratulations!!!