Why should you unit test? What should you unit test? And how much?
Today's blog post answers these questions and provides some helpful guidelines.
The post is actually a lightly edited extract of a book on unit testing that I started about 10 years ago but never finished. Still, it has aged reasonably well.
The other day my kid asks me to present math problems about area. Early middle school: simple multiplications and divisions. He got taught a formula for areas of trapezoids: A = 1/2h * (b1 + b2).
I decided to show him how to #unittest his #math solution, by giving him a different approach: A = a + 2b, where a = area of the square, and b = area of each triangle on the sides of that square.
He threw a fit and refused to accept my approach, because it wasn’t the same as he had learned.
Educators should avoid making belief that the approach they teach is the only possible one.
You cannot verify your approach by repeating it. That only tests whether it leads to the same outcome, but doesn’t verify. Instead, you need to find a different way to get to the same conclusion, and then compare.
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I think that testable code is reusable code. When you test a function, you run the code in another context than it was built for (the production code). If your code is not reusable you will feel that pain in your tests.
This blog post gives an example of how getting side effects out of functions make them both easier to test and reuse.
I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again, most of y’all don’t know what it’s like to be a fediverse developer of a popular project and have to deal with all the negative feedback and personal attacks
Let’s be nicer to the devs of the fediverse who have been doing this mostly unpaid for the greater good, all I ask is for basic respect!
Anfora, Prismo, Firefish and dozens of other projects have been abandoned by their devs, and I’d bet the fediverse mentality towards devs is part of the reason
One good way to support the Fediverse's volunteer devs: ask them to work with volunteer design and user-research practitioners who help them to develop and test usable designs – before any substantial code is written.
Testing mockups and prototypes with the community would reduce unhappiness all around.
The New York Times reports the tech has mistakenly identified people as connected to Hamas. Israel has deployed a mass facial recognition program in the Gaza Strip, creating a database of Palestinians without their knowledge or consent, The New York Times reports. The program, which was created after the October 7th attacks,...
Israel quietly rolled out a mass facial recognition program in the Gaza Strip (www.theverge.com)
The New York Times reports the tech has mistakenly identified people as connected to Hamas. Israel has deployed a mass facial recognition program in the Gaza Strip, creating a database of Palestinians without their knowledge or consent, The New York Times reports. The program, which was created after the October 7th attacks,...