In article <4e83b8e0$0$29972$c3e8da3$54964...@news.astraweb.com>, Steven D'Aprano <steve+comp.lang.pyt...@pearwood.info> wrote:
> If you are writing loops inside tests, you might find this anecdote useful: > > http://mail.python.org/pipermail/python-list/2011-April/1270640.html On the other hand, the best test is one that gets written. I will often write tests that I know do not meet the usual standards of purity and wholesomeness. Here's a real-life example: for artist in artists: name = artist['name'] self.assertIsInstance(name, unicode) name = name.lower() # Due to fuzzy matching, it's not strictly guaranteed that the # following assertion is true, but it works in this case. self.assertTrue(name.startswith(term), (name, term)) Could I have written the test without the loop? Probably. Would it have been a better test? I guess, at some level, probably. And, of course, the idea of a "not strictly guaranteed" assertion is probably enough to make me lose my Unit Tester's Guild Secret Decoder Ring forever :-) But, the test was quick and easy to write, and provides value. I could have spent twice as long writing a better test, and it would have provided a little more value, but certainly not double. More importantly, had I spent the extra time writing the better test, I might have not had enough time to write all the other tests I wrote that day. Sometimes good enough is good enough. -- http://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/python-list
