Tagged Questions
61
votes
16answers
5k views
When is unit testing inappropriate or unnecessary? [duplicate]
It seems to be generally assumed (on Stack Overflow at least) that there should always be unit tests, and they should be kept up to date. But I suspect the programmers making these assertions ...
39
votes
10answers
3k views
How should I test randomness?
Consider a method to randomly shuffle elements in an array. How would you write a simple yet robust unit test to make sure that this is working?
I've come up with two ideas, both of which have ...
19
votes
7answers
2k views
Automated unit testing, integration testing or acceptance testing
TDD and unit testing seems to be the big rave at the moment. But it is really that useful compared to other forms of automated testing?
Intuitively I would guess that automated integration testing is ...
10
votes
2answers
370 views
Software Testing Techniques [closed]
What kinds of software testing do you know? I've heard about Test-Driven Development, Unit tests etc, but can't understand their importance and difference. For example, why are we using regression ...
17
votes
11answers
944 views
At what point would you drop some of your principles of software development for the sake of more money?
I'd like to throw this question out there to interestingly see where the medium is.
I'm going to admit that in my last 12 months, I picked up TDD and a lot of the Agile values in software ...
17
votes
8answers
864 views
What are the disadvantages of writing code before writing unit tests?
I have always seen the recommendation that we should first write unit tests and then start writing code. But I feel that going the other way is much more comfortable (for me) - write code and then the ...
8
votes
5answers
737 views
What is a normal “functional lines of code” to “test lines of code” ratio?
I'm pretty new to TDD approach and my first experiments say that writing 1 line of functional code means writing about 2-3 lines of testing code. So, in case I'm going to write 1000 LOC, the whole ...
37
votes
11answers
5k views
What are the disadvantages of automated testing?
There are a number of questions on this site that give plenty of information about the benefits that can be gained from automated testing. But I didn't see anything that represented the other side of ...
16
votes
7answers
790 views
How to explain the value of unit testing
I want to introduce the concept of unit tests (and testing in general) to my co-workers; right now there are no tests at all and things are tested by actually performing the tasks via the UI to see ...
17
votes
3answers
919 views
Are asserts or unit tests more important?
Both asserts and unit tests serve as documentation for a codebase, and a means of discovering bugs. The main differences are that asserts function as sanity checks and see real inputs, whereas unit ...
7
votes
7answers
2k views
Is is possible to unit test a web forms site
Is is possible (and sensible) to unit test a web forms site? It seems to me that as so much of it depends on state and user input it wouldn't be fesable.
If it's not feasible is there a valid ...
18
votes
4answers
721 views
Unit testing best practices for a unit testing newbie
In recent years, I have only written small components for people in larger projects or small tools. I have never written a unit test and it always seems like learning how to write them and actually ...
4
votes
3answers
313 views
In TDD, if I write a test case that passes without modifying production code, what does that mean?
These are Robert C. Martin's rules for TDD:
You are not allowed to write any production code unless it is to
make a failing unit test pass.
You are not allowed to write any more
of a unit test than ...
5
votes
2answers
243 views
Writing functional tests for a legacy project
I am trying to add a couple of tests to a legacy C project. The project basically consists of a command line tool that prints something to stdout every time an event happens. Now, since writing unit ...
3
votes
4answers
460 views
Is path coverage stronger than condition coverage?
I have encountered (even in literature) two contradicting opinions related to path vs condition coverage (not branch or edge!). Some say Path coverage is stronger than the condition coverage, some say ...
