Productivity: Testing

[Update: Added links for Hexawise and Allpairs, which I’d meant to do earlier.] Data driving, also often called parameterization, is a wonderful way to increase your test coverage though parts of your system; however, it’s also a seductive, alluring tool that can needlessly explode your tests’ complexity and execution cost. Let’s tackle the cons of data driving first, then walk through how it can, when mindfully used, lend some great value to your automation suites. Problems with Data Driving Automated test scripts need to be treated like production code—because they are production code! With that in mind, as test ...

I thought I’d follow up that last post on Using Data Driven Testing Wisely with something specific around the size of the dataset for a data driven test (DDT). What’s a good size for a DDT? As with everything in software engineering/testing, the answer is “42.” That, or “It depends.” In all seriousness, the right size of a dataset for a carefully thought out scenario does indeed depend. My payroll algorithm in the last post was a simple test set. You may be working something much more complex relating to finance, rocket science, or environmental controls. Every situation’s different, but ...

JustMock is a great tool for abstracting dependencies in unit tests, and the new automocking feature makes it even faster to develop unit tests.  Another great feature in JustMock and JustMock Lite is the capability to assert the behavior of your system under test.  Traditional TDD (Test Driven Testing) unit testing typically tests for state.  Did the user get logged in? Did the user’s shopping cart get loaded?  Important tests, of course.  But that only tests the end result of the method.  If the user does NOT successfully login, and the cart is not reloaded, is that because the call to the repository was never called? Or because some error happened that didn’t reload the cart in this particular use case?  The state of the application is correct, but is that because it executed the expected behavior, or because we got lucky? 

[Updated: Fixed grammar foul on ‘Tenants’ vs. ‘Tenets’.] 2012 is drawing to a close, and apparently all the worry about the Mayan calendar not extending past today is thankfully misplaced! The ending of a year is a good time for some introspection, and some thinking about what’s in store for the next year. Lots of smart folks in the testing field have their own opinions about what we’ll see (or won’t!) next year, but here are a few of my thoughts. Keep in mind this list is totally in line with my own very opinionated biases! Whole Team Testing This ...

In .NET there are two types of constructors, instance constructors and static constructors. Instance constructors are called when objects are instantiated, while static constructors get called before any member of the class is invoked for the first time.