"Unit tests take too much time".... WTF

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"Unit tests take too much time".... WTF(devlicio.us)

submitted by chrcar01(560) 4 years, 8 months ago

Good little post that pretty well describes most of the people I work with, and their mantra goes something like this: "We don't have time for unit tests right now, we have to get this project done ASAP!! We can always refactor and clean up the code later"

3 comments |category: Unit Testing |Views: 32
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posted by powerrush(3873) 4 years, 8 months ago 0

The tone of this article comes off as extremely condescending and dogmatic. If the article's goal is to promote the benefits of TDD/Unit Testing, it unfortunately may have the opposite effect of alienating those considering the move to TDD. However, if the article's goal is to rant and/or insult those who are resistant to the TDD methodology (for whatever the reason may be), then nevermind. :-)

IMHO, the clear benefit of TDD/Unit Testing is increasing code quality. And, if one uses the Agile methodology, Unit Testing is, IMHO, _critical_ because it gives you the "code confidence" for the many refactorings that come with each iteration.

posted by joejoejoejoe(1140) 4 years, 8 months ago 0

No offense intended, but a lot of the "agile" post Ive read lately have come across as condescending and dogmatic. Agilists: Rigid and inflexible.

posted by senfo(881) 4 years, 8 months ago 0

I believe in keeping my unit tests as simple as possible. What it boils down to are very simple problems. When you do something, you expect a result. Simple as that. I your unit tests are taking you so long to write, maybe they're too complicated and I believe complicated unit tests are counter productive because then you will need unit tests to test your unit tests.

I've actually had my unit tests find bugs in my code that I didn't even realize I had. Also, as powerrush mentions, its' a great way to make sure your refactoring doesn't break something, unintentionally.

Sure, all of these things *should* be caught in a regression test when the product is deployed to a testing environment; however, it's much easier for a developer to make corrections to the code while it is still fresh in their mind, rather than realizing that he/she created a bug a few months down the road. This is even easier when a team has implemented continuous integration, which includes steps to run and verify unit tests.

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