Programming

After we have created a useful application, the odds are that we want to share it with other people. One way to do this is to create a binary distribution that can be downloaded from our website. This blog post describes how we can build a binary distribution that fulfils the following requirements: Our binary […] Read More

When we write tests for our data access code, we use datasets for two different purposes: We initialize our database into a known state before our data access tests are run. We verify that the correct changes are found from the database. These seem like easy tasks. However, it is very easy to mess things […] Read More

When we write unit tests that use mock objects, we follow these steps: Configure the behavior of our mock objects. Invoke the tested method. Verify that the correct methods of our mock objects were invoked. The description of the third step is actually a bit misleading, because often we end up verifying that the correct […] Read More

When we write tests for our data access code, we must follow these three rules: Our tests must use the real database schema. Our tests must be deterministic. Our tests must assert the right thing. These rules are obvious. That is why it is surprising that some developers break them (I have broken them too […] Read More

When we write tests for our data access code, should we test every method of its public API? It sounds natural at first. After all, if we don't test everything, how can we know that our code works as expected? That question provides us an important clue: Our code. We should write tests only to […] Read More

The first thing that we have to do before we can start writing integration tests for our data access code is to decide how we will configure our test cases. We have two options: the right one and wrong one. Unfortunately many developers make the wrong choice. How can we avoid making the same mistake? […] Read More