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How do you know your code works when you write it if you don't test it?
by exdsq 5y ago
How do you know your code works when you write it if you don't test it?
- syngrog66 5y agoyou run it. look at the results or output. like the stdout, or a file it changed, or in a REPL or debugger. depends on situation
- exdsq 5y agoSounds laborious to manually check edge cases each time you change that code or its dependencies. I'd rather just write a test.
- chrisandchris 5y agoYeah I‘m not sure that‘s how software engineering should work. Tests should prove a desired behaviour. Sometimes it‘s not possible to fully run code until late in some staging, just because there are a lot of dependencies and conplexity. That‘s what tests are for (on various lebels of abstraction).
- cortesoft 5y agoI think it depends on the task. Some code we write is so simple and only used a few times that you don’t need tests.
- cortesoft 5y agoSorry, should have said “aren’t JUST to make sure your code works when you write it” I was specifically responding to the commenter I replied to, who said they didn’t need tests because their code just worked the first time after he wrote it.
- globular-toast 5y agoYou don't. But you only need to test it once (manually), then commit it. You write automated tests so that you can keep running the tests later such that the behaviour is maintained through refactor and non-breaking changes.