4 ms·

This is why unit tests suck. They are but a simple exercise in basic code interpretation. A computer can easily do it. What you want to test is the interface

• mercurial 13y ago
  > What you want to test is the interface of your module to the rest of the application and whether it satisfies the published contract, and preferably if it handles weird cases correctly. I don't know what's a "module". If a module is a "small unit of code" (eg, a class), that's usually what you cover in your unit test.
• lotsofcows 13y ago
  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unit_testing http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unit_testing You're criticising unit test for things that unit tests don't do. I hate apples. They don't taste like pears.
  • waps 13y ago
    Bleh. That definition of unit tests is so bland as to not differentiate between any kind of testing. That definition explicitly states that having a person (like QA?) go through the app and see what happens also constitutes unit testing. And that's bullshit, manual testing is not unit testing. And neither is testing an entire module at a time. A useful discussion on the terminology problem can be found here: http://c2.com/cgi/wiki?StandardDefinitionOfUnitTest http://c2.com/cgi/wiki?StandardDefinitionOfUnitTest Most definitions define unit testing as testing the "smallest piece of code that can be tested in isolation". Then my criticism definitely applies. And given my code reviews, it's obvious that the vast majority of programmers see unit testing as testing every individual function/method in isolation. This actually hides problems by increasing total source code (actual code and the tests + "compromises" for testability) and locks down internal structure of supposedly encapsulated logic. Both are very, very bad things.
• harrytuttle 13y ago
  I thought that was system integration testing?
  • badman_ting 13y ago
    It is. Used in addition to (not instead of!) unit testing.
• upthedale 13y ago
  Check out the MSR project Pex (for .Net, not PHP however) http://research.microsoft.com/en-us/projects/pex/ http://research.microsoft.com/en-us/projects/pex/ It is designed to generate input for your code (the public surface by default) to determine whether it runs correctly. It can use code contract features in .Net to help inform whether your code is correct. It is great for finding those 'weird cases', and where you find a particularly interesting case, it is easy to add it as a test in your suite. You can see it used (and play around yourself) through the browser here: http://www.pexforfun.com http://www.pexforfun.com
• strictfp 13y ago
  You're probably testing too much. Take Kent Becks advice and only write a test when you can bet a dollar that it would fail. Don't write tests for things which you never fail at. BTW, the term "unit test" can mean many things depending on who you ask. I prefer to stick with the general term "test".
  • twistedpair 13y ago
    This works until you make a significant refactoring. If you have great coverage, you are pretty sure everything's jiving correctly. Not sure what kind of refactoring tools existed back in the SmallTalk days for Beck.
    • strictfp 13y ago
      The OP said that unit testing sucks because it can be automated. If your tests are so simple that they can be automated I would argue that they are useless, because you're not really testing functionality, but more boilerplate. You can usually skip underlying boilerplate tests if you test the functionality (within reason). Focusing on the right level and skipping the lowest level actually makes refactoring easier, since you have a degree of freedom at the very bottom left.
    • twistedpair 13y ago
      Use a boilerplate test generator if you need boilerplate tests, such as Google's CodePro. ;)