Hmm. What if your unit tests are statements about your code? I view them as a way of locking in functionality and saying that the code does or doesn't do things

Hmm. What if your unit tests are statements about your code? I view them as a way of locking in functionality and saying that the code does or doesn't do things for certain inputs. That's what unit tests are in my mind. I find it strange to view tests as only way a of catching bugs. You just use them to say what your code is/isn't capable of doing. Using tests as a way of finding problems seems like not a great way of saying code has issues x,y, and z but they are a great of saying something does a, b, c. If you are going through a refactor you might not be implementing a, b or c correctly anymore and if your tests are designed well this will be caught. If we are only talking about bug catching, you are right there are better tools. But I'll say if somebody says code does something and there are no tests demonstrating that fact, I don't trust it generally unless it's something like a game where it's hard to test certain things.