From: Rick DeNatale <rick.denatale@...>
Date: 2009-07-21T02:36:11+09:00
Subject: Re: Test::Unit run order

On Mon, Jul 20, 2009 at 12:50 PM, Dylan<mejari@gmail.com> wrote:
> I would love to do that, but I have no idea how. The "real problem" of
> my slow tests is caused by the very real requirement of logging in
> every time, were they to be truly independent. I'm not in charge of
> the bandwidth to the server, I'm not in charge of the log-in code, and
> I'm not in charge of the "Lets make the tests take less than a day to
> run" requirement. I'm testing a web app, and web apps by their very
> nature have to transmit data back and forth, which takes more time
> than any local machine doing operations.

It sounds to me that there's a confusion here between unit-testing and
full-stack testing.

For example if this were a rails app, the normal approach is to have
tests for models, separate tests for controllers, and integration
tests to test user interface flows.

And even in the last case, this is normally done not by transmitting
data back and forth, instead Rails provides special integration test
mocks for the http infrastructure which simulates actual http request
and response transmission.

And logging in (i.e. authorization) is one thing which is usually
mocked out for many if not all tests.  Jim Weirich does a humorous
'skit' about mocking login, in which he has to help a co-worker who
was testing failed password validation using real access and his own
account, and kept getting locked out of the system.

Less traditional ruby web developers are using tools like Cucumber and
webrat to do integration/acceptance testing, but these are still
simulating infrastructure in different ways.

-- 
Rick DeNatale

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