Programming / Testing

In the previous part of this tutorial we solved some common problems found from “clean” unit tests by using nested configuration. I was very happy with the final test class, but after a while I realized that something was bothering me. The only problem was that I couldn’t figure out what it was. I ignored […] Read More

I think that software development is more than just a job. I see myself as an artisan who is trying to get better every day. The "easiest way" to do this is to find a few good tools and find the answers to these questions: When should I use the tool X? How should I […] Read More

We have learned that "clean" unit tests might not be as clean as we think. We have done our best to make our unit tests as clean as possible. Our tests are formatted properly, use domain-specific language, and avoid excessive mocking. Nevertheless, our unit tests are not clean because: When we make changes to the […] Read More

If our code has obvious faults, we are very motivated to improve it. However, at some point we decide that our code is "good enough" and move on. Typically this happens when we think that the benefits of improving our existing code are smaller than the required work. Of course, if we underestimate our return […] 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