Where did you learn to unit test? How did you learn?

[John Roth]

"BB" <bbondi at pacbell.net> wrote in message
news:mailman.1051823176.30312.python-list at python.org...
> Hiya,
> http://www.context-driven-testing.com/ is a must read, and
> http://www.satisfice.com. Several articles really are great! Short and
to
> the point, yes QA is the slant but read
> http://www.satisfice.com/tools/testable.pdf from a developer point of
> reference and your QA team will be in 'Shock and awe', hehe. For those
teams
> in XP mode or Rapid Dev. this is a must read.

[overstatement]
I took a quick look at the references, and I can say that I am
indeed shocked at the retro ideas, and in awe of the intellectual
blindness inherent in them.
[end overstatement]

Seriously, he's got quite a few good points, but they are all
from the "test afterwards" school of thought. As far as I can tell,
the best approach is not to put the bugs in there in the first place.

This is the approach advocated by such luminaries of the
early Software Engineering school as Djikstra, Hoare and
Wirth with their notions of producing a program proof before
writing code.

And it's also the approach advocated by XP, with its notion
of creating an executable specification (called a test) before
writing code.

Done with appropriate diligence, both approaches result
in essentially bug-free code on the first commit to the
repository.

Of course, it's wise to keep a beady eye on your
defect rate to make sure it doesn't suddenly rise when
you're not looking.

John Roth

>
> Bob,
> just a member of the Context Driven approach.
>
> > -----Original Message-----
> > From: python-list-admin at python.org
> > [mailto:python-list-admin at python.org]On Behalf Of David Broadwell
> > Sent: Thursday, May 01, 2003 12:04 PM
> > To: python-list at python.org
> > Subject: Re: Where did you learn to unit test? How did you learn?
> >
> >
> > > I've noticed in my development that Python programmers (in
general)
> > > write more unit tests than their java counterparts.  If I download
a
> > > project off of jakarta.apache.org, it very rarely has unit tests.
> > > However, when I download a python module, it frequently has unit
> > > tests.
> >
> > For the less educated here(spreading the bug early);  What
> > exactly is a unit
> > test? How does the investment payoff? Where can the newer
programmers find
> > good examples of unit tests?
> >
> > ( I personally know the answer to some of these, but answers
> > should be good
> > for the group )
> >
> >
> > --
> > http://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/python-list
> >
>
>