mtbc: maze I (white-red)
Mark T. B. Carroll ([personal profile] mtbc) wrote2022-11-08 01:40 am
Entry tags:

Automated tests for software

I have known for many years that I enjoy devising software solutions to difficult problems, then implementing and demonstrating them. A more recent discovery for me is that I enjoy writing automated tests for the software I write. I wonder if this is partly because I like writing code when I have a good understanding of what is going on and, having implemented code and got it appearing to work, mostly I already know how to write tests for it and can then just get on with that productively.

Agile purists may ask, weren't the tests already written? Not all of us get to work in such a shielded environment. When a deadline is pressing and another developer is made more productive by my piece already working, even buggily, then I'll get off the critical path as soon as I can. When I am proposing projects to wealthy, patient customers then I build the test-writing into every task on the chart, but I have not been in that enviable position for years now.
fred_mouse: line drawing of sheep coloured in queer flag colours with dream bubble reading 'dreamwidth' (Default)

[personal profile] fred_mouse 2022-11-11 11:52 am (UTC)(link)

I, too, am discovering that there is pleasure in setting up a decent set up unit tests. Fortunately for me though, those tests are a required part of the workflow to demonstrate that the models I write are Doing The Thing.