“Technology-Facing Tests that Support the Team”

A look at tests in Quadrant-1 – Technology Facing tests

• Unit tests and component tests ensure quality by helping the programmers understand exactly what the code needs to do and providing guidance in the right design
• The term ‘Test-Driven Development’ misleads practitioners who do not understand that its more about design than testing. Code developed test-first is naturally designed for Testability.
• When teams practice TDD, they minimize the number of bugs that must be caught later.

• Source Code Control, Configuration Management and Continuous Integration are essential to getting value from programmer tests that guide development.
• CI saves time and motivates each programmer to run the tests before checking in the new code.
• An advantage of driving development with tests is that code is written with the express intention of making tests pass.
• A common approach in designing a testable architecture is to separate the different layers that perform different functions in the application.

“The biggest value of unit tests is in the speed of their feedback.”

• Each unit test is different and tests one dimension at a time
• Learning to write Quadrant-1 tests is hard.
• Because TDD is really more of a design activity, it is essential that the person writing the code also writes the tests, before writing the code.

• To Managers—
  • If a delivery date is in jeopardy, push to reduce the scope, not the quality.
  • Give the team time to learn and provide expert, hands-on training.

• Technology-facing tests cannot be done without the right tools and infrastructure