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Software Engineering

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    My father used to ask me that: Why didn't you think of the thing you didn't think of? (Only he used to make it confusing by saying "If you don't know, ask!") But how do I know that I don't know? Commented Jul 14, 2016 at 13:28
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    "It means that the parts of your design that you consciously thought about and wrote tests for are working as you consciously thought they would." Exactly right. This information is invaluable if you are refactoring, or if something changes somewhere else in the system that breaks your assumptions. Developers who are lulled into a false sense of security simply do not understand the limitations of unit testing, but that doesn't render unit testing a useless tool. Commented Jul 15, 2016 at 15:09
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    @MasonWheeler: Like you, the author thinks that unit testing is somehow supposed to prove that your program works. It doesn't. Let me repeat that: unit testing does not prove that your program works. Unit testing proves that your methods fulfill your testing contract, and that's all it does. The rest of the paper falls down, because it rests on that single invalid premise. Commented Jul 15, 2016 at 15:18
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    Naturally, developers who have that false belief are going to be disappointed when unit testing utterly fails them, but that's the fault of the developer, not of unit testing, and it doesn't invalidate the genuine value that unit testing provides. Commented Jul 15, 2016 at 15:22
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    o_O @ your first sentence. Unit tests give you a false sense of security while coding like having your hands on the steering wheel gives you a false sense of security while driving. Commented Jul 15, 2016 at 22:45