Comments on: Unit testing makes coding more fun

By: Elijah Insua

Elijah Insua — Wed, 06 Aug 2008 19:15:58 +0000

Good article, I’ve written a tool that illeviates the need for running the tests on the command line (making refactoring/coding even more fun!).
Basically it’s an ajax’d web application that automatically runs tests and caches their dependencies.
The beauty of the dependency cache is that when you change a source file, all of the tests associated with it are automatically re-run.
Tests can be written for files that do not exist, or contain fatal errors, etc.

Its available here: http://www.blerby.com/project/testrunner

By: Mastodont

Mastodont — Sun, 22 Jun 2008 09:03:14 +0000

… Without a unit test framework I would have had to test it via the web based front end …

Why? You can call class methods without UI. Simple cycle with different arguments suffices.

By: Silvan Mühlemann

Silvan Mühlemann — Tue, 10 Jun 2008 20:25:55 +0000

@mysterious me: To test the form you need functional tests. Selenium would help you on that one. Currently we are doing these manually as we have not found an efficient way to program them with Selenium (Selenium IDE did not help us much on that one due to a high cost for setting up the fixture and many special cases to cover). Maybe someone else has a clue?

By: Me

Me — Mon, 09 Jun 2008 23:45:33 +0000

How do you do the actual tests? You can test the different php functions, but there can still be errors in the html code (forms) which you wouldn’t find in your tests.

Did you create something on your own to test the actual websites (eg. with login etc…). How do you to these tests?

(The not so mysterious me )

By: | Webgedanken

| Webgedanken — Sun, 08 Jun 2008 17:36:14 +0000

[...] Techblog von Tilllateberichtet darüber dass man mit Unit-Tests mehr Spaß am Programmiern haben kann . Er schreibt über die Vorteile von Unit-Tests und über bestimmte Test-Frameworks wie PHPUnit. [...]

By: Robert Impey

Robert Impey — Tue, 03 Jun 2008 20:13:06 +0000

I definitely find TDD more fun.

When I’m writing the tests, I feel like a demanding guest at a restaurant, making the most obscure requests I can imagine. I try not to think about how the code will work but what I need it to do. I even try to forget that I’m going to have to write the code that passes the tests and imagine that a junior temp will have to make the program work.

Once the tests are in place, coding is also more fun. As the program is fleshed out you get a satisfaction like ticking the items of a list.

You’re also more free to experiment with different algorithms and so on so long as the code passes all the tests.

By: Silvan Mühlemann

Silvan Mühlemann — Mon, 02 Jun 2008 06:58:24 +0000

@Mike: “more fun / less boring” is like “the glass is half full / half empty”

@Joe: You know, I am so fast writing those tests. The time it takes me to write them is negligible

By: Mike

Mike — Sun, 01 Jun 2008 23:16:40 +0000

I think “fun” is pushing it a bit but it certainly makes it less boring.

By: Joe

Joe — Sun, 01 Jun 2008 23:08:11 +0000

Yeah, but how long to write the test?

(not bashing unit testing, you just didn’t mention it, thats all)

the positives are clear, your test is 100% repeatable, whereas filling in the form manually is not