Categories
programming

(Again) Why Test?

When whipping out the Josephus game, I used Jasmine to write the tests… er.. spec for anticipating the behaviour of the code. Among the many reasons I use a “test-driven methodology” (even in the smallest of projects) is that I like to (nay, NEED to) keep a close eye on the strategic direction of the code while I’m minutely engaged in the technical direction. And a picture like this is so easy to read:

Strategy

Categories
Technology

I Love My TestHarness

now wouldn’t that make a great bumper sticker? 😀

again, yesterday, i experienced the fullness of my beloved test harness. as it always happens, business requirements change; dynamic market pressures or product discovery over time dictate that change is required. now whether you’ve spent 6 months designing before coding or spent 6 months designing through coding [implemented code IS the design], how do you evaluate the impact of the change accurately? how do you go back to the hand that feeds you and estimate the cost of change with confidence [which impacts on a marketing strategy and promise] and maintain that near-perfect delivery track record? and then, how do you know, for sure, that your implemented change doesn’t inadvertently break some other part of the system because the system is now so huge [increasing feature set over time] it’s getting near to impossible to keep it alltogether in one moment?

welcome the testharness!

it was so quick to implement the change [fully tested on it’s own of course] but then integrate the new module into the existing system… the next step was to figure out: where to begin with handling all the other intelligence that relies on the old structures and is impacted by the new structure?

ran the tests. red bar with breaking intelligence over one primary area. there were one or two adhoc modules that were affected. no sweat. the beauty was that i din’t need to comb throught the system to find them. i let my system tell me and in doing so saved myself a load of cognitive energy. now that the buggy areas are recorded i can fix one test a time until the bar is green and walah! 😀

there was *life*, allegedly, before a test harness and now then there’s life with a test harness. i cannot remember what software development was like before. i just know now that more than ever before i truly passionately enjoy my craft! [which also happens to pay the rent ;)]