Talking with my teammates I've noticed that there is some confusion related to what
testing means and in general
how tests can improve the quality of the codebase by favouring the development of
components that are of higher
quality - unluckily it doesn't favour hair regrowing. Tests are also cool because when
done right they represent
an executable form of documentation.
Some intro material:
1 How to Write Clean, Testable Code by Miško Hevery (A Googler)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XcT4yYu_TTs
2 How to write testable code by Miško Hevery (hands on ;-))
http://misko.hevery.com/attachments/Guide-Writing%20Testable%20Code.pdf
Examples are provided in Java but the same principles apply to Python
as well.
3 TDD by James Shore (a practice created by Kent Beck)
http://www.jamesshore.com/Agile-Book/test_driven_development.html
A broad article explaining TDD and related concepts.
4 Difference between state based testing and interaction based testing
http://martinfowler.com/articles/mocksArentStubs.html
Not so intro - but easier to understand after consuming previous material:
5 Mock Roles, not Objects by Freeman and Pryce
http://jmock.org/oopsla2004.pdf
They both wrote a very interesting book: Growing Object Oriented Software: Guided by
Tests
http://www.amazon.com/Growing-Object-Oriented-Software-Guided-Tests/dp/03...
I didn't read it yet.
Points from 3 to 5 mostly describe a different kind of working practice, which is very
opinionated but nevertheless with some interesting ideas. I consider points 1-2
fundamentals.
Enjoy, Giuseppe
I will share new materials if there's some interest on it.