[Tutor] Using unittest module for Test Driven Development

[Marc Tompkins]

On Mon, Aug 25, 2014 at 12:04 AM, Alex Kleider <akleider at sonic.net> wrote:

> I appreciate your further elucidation, like your 'sledge hammer' metaphor and thank you for the fragility warning. I expect within such a limited scope, the dangers are not great.

As someone who has been burned by this sort of thinking, please allow
me to urge you:  get into good habits now!  At various points in my
career when I've been learning a new language/technology/paradigm,
I've decided to take shortcuts when writing my early "toy" programs.
Unfortunately, in several cases, my "toy" programs ended up evolving
into production code - shortcuts and all.  In particular, I used to
assume that my code - since it was either a learning exercise or a
utility for myself alone - would only ever run in a
single-user/single-tasking environment, and that when I wrote the
"real" program later (in my copious free time) I would take the
necessary precautions.  Please, take a fool's advice: always assume
that any program you write (more complex than "Hello world") will
eventually be running in a busy environment, or that your user will
manage to invoke five copies of it instead of one, or...