[ruby-talk:13103] Re: [ANN] Lapidary 0.2.0

william l kleb wrote:

> Nathaniel Talbott wrote:
> >
> > There's more info on all of this at
http://lapidary.sourceforge.net/docs/
> > [...] If you have any further questions/comments [..], please, let me
know.
>
> in the docs introduction you write:
>
> > [..] One of the keys to good unit testing, though, is not just writing
> > tests, but having tests.  What's the difference?  Well, if you just
write
> > a test and throw it away, you have no guarantee that something won't
> > change later which breaks your code. If, on the other hand, you have
tests
> > (obviously you have to write them first), and run them as often as
possible,
> > you slowly build up a wall of things that cannot break without you
> > immediately knowing about it. This is when unit testing hits its peak
> > usefulness.
>
> Recently, in a thread entitled "IT World Interview with
> Robert C. Martin"
> crossposted to news:comp.object and
> news:comp.software.extreme-programming
> Martin offers a subtly, but IMHO *substantially*, different version of
> the "peak usefulness" of unit tests: test-first programming.
> Martin wrote:

<snip excellent RCM quote>

> with emphasis on "you never write any production code unless it is to
> make a failing test case pass."

You'll get no argument from me about test-first programming; it's what I do
every day. Indeed, Lapidary itself was written test-first. However, even
test-first programming is dependent on some type of framework for
persistently _having_ tests as opposed to just _writing_ tests, because it
assumes you can run the tests just as easily after you add functionality as
before; otherwise, how would you know you were done? From that, it seems
that having tests _is_ the peak of useful unit testing, whereas test-first
programming is the peak of good development. Do you agree?

Perhaps I need to clarify what I wrote, though, since I'm in love with
test-first programming and I don't want to even give the impression that I'm
contradicting it :-)


Nathaniel

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