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Showing posts from March, 2012

Simpler Tests: What kind of test are you writing?

One common problem that I see in test suites is confusion about what each test should cover. This confusion often leads to tests that are either too broad or too focused to accomplish the goal of the author. When writing a test, it is important to think about what kind of test it will be and the constraints that make that type of test effective. There are a few broad categories of tests that I keep in mind to help focus my testing: Unit Tests Also called micro tests, unit tests form the foundation of any good testing strategy. These are tests that test a single class or method in isolation from it's dependencies. Mocks and stubs help us isolate the code under test and make our tests more focused and expressive. A test that touches any external resource such as the database, the file system, a web service, etc is never a unit test. The primary purpose of unit tests is to validate that the subject under test is functionally correct for the expected inputs and outputs. Additiona