On Jun 3, 12:35 am, [EMAIL PROTECTED] (Jacob Hallen) wrote: > In article <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>, > > David <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: [...] > >That's why you have human testing & QA. Unit tests can help, but they > >are a poor substitute. If the customer is happy with the first > >version, you can improve it, fix bugs, and add more unit tests later. > > The most important aspect of usnit testing is actually that it makes the code > testable. > This may sound lik an oxymoron but it is actually a really important > property. Testable > code has to have a level of modularity as well as simplicity and clarity in > its > interfaces that you will not achieve in code that lacks automated unit tests.
I don't agree. To me the most important aspect of unit testing is that it is automated. That is, the time you spend writing new tests you reap each time you run your test suite. The fact that writing automated tests has a beneficial effect on the modularity of your code is a pleasant though hard to measure side effect. Automation should also be the most convincing argument for the OP. The most evident liability of the approach he described is the need to re- instrument his code all over again each time. Writing an equivalent set of automated tests is likely to take him more, but the time taken to write each test is time he doesn't need to spend anymore. [...] > Another aspect that you are raising is the use of human testing and QA. I > agree that > these are important, but every bug they discover is a failure of the > developers and > their tests. Our testers can sail through a testbed in 30 minutes if there > are no bugs. > Every single bug adds 30-60 minutes of testers time in order to pinpoint the > bug > and supply the developers with enough information to locate and fix it. Add > some > 10 minutes to testing time on the next testbed to verify that the bug is > actually > fixed. In my end of the world, tester time is not cheaper than developer > time. It > is also a scarcer resource than developer time. Moreover, hand performed testing takes the same amount of time each time it is performed and doesn't enjoy the incremental aspect of automated testing. Cheers, Nicola Musatti -- http://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/python-list
