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I'll give you one real example: because my application is some embedded software that has to be built, downloaded onto the target and then run. That is the only

I'll give you one real example: because my application is some embedded software that has to be built, downloaded onto the target and then run. That is the only environment the real application runs in. Some tests should be run at this level, but the cost to automate and the benefit means that you usually don't try and get full coverage. You can build a desktop version of the software with hardware mocked out, which is very useful, but then you're doing something much more akin to an integration test.

austincheney 8y ago
Unless the software is firmware or an OS it rarely directly touches the hardware. It only knows of the hardware available because the firmware or OS provide that information. I have seen a lot of organizations fake this with an array of VMs or when that is not enough they have a bunch of spare hardware to test against, like a whole bunch of different models of Android phones.