Timeline for Are (database) integration tests bad?
Current License: CC BY-SA 4.0
16 events
| when toggle format | what | by | license | comment | |
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| Apr 16, 2024 at 14:15 | comment | added | Edwin Buck | @dodgethesteamroller When considering testing, I don't see context-driven testing acknowledging even the basic management of testing or the basic debugging of test failures. The ice-cream cone pattern typically yields a "system failed" result, which then needs post-run debugging to discover what failed, or basically "how we started testing in the 1970's" Yes, it is useful in some scenarios (especially when an independent component acts differently than expected), but a sufficient bank of unit tests was the approach to fix "it crashed again, but I can't find out why". | |
| Aug 28, 2020 at 18:16 | history | edited | Jeff Bowman | CC BY-SA 4.0 | Better summary up top, plus case study down below, plus link to test doubles. |
| May 26, 2018 at 9:35 | comment | added | Nicholas Shanks | Also, pyramids are a lot bigger than ice-cream cones. Bigger == more tests == better ;-) | |
| Mar 16, 2017 at 19:52 | vote | accept | mindplay.dk | ||
| Jun 16, 2016 at 0:28 | history | edited | Jeff Bowman | CC BY-SA 3.0 | Add the most damning aspect of integration tests. |
| Nov 12, 2015 at 18:48 | comment | added | Jeff Bowman | @dodgethesteamroller Whether something is contrarian IS a matter of opinion or perspective; in a few years it may be the dominant line of thinking, for all I know. Don't read into my punctuation; my point is specifically not to judge it and merely to say that that if you think it's contrarian, and expound on it in 2 (now 3) comments, it's time for it to be an answer. | |
| Nov 12, 2015 at 18:43 | comment | added | dodgethesteamroller | @JeffBowman Point taken on the comment vs. answer, although I was commenting specifically on the Testing Pyramid, which some people do take as gospel (even if you don't). But why do you put "contrarian school" in quotes as if it's a matter of opinion or a joke? Cem Kaner and like-minded engineers and academics are highly regarded members of the software testing community. | |
| Nov 6, 2015 at 19:38 | comment | added | rszalski | Highly recommended presentation on the hierarchy and ratio of unittests to integration tests: vimeo.com/80533536 Very well explained. | |
| Nov 4, 2015 at 17:01 | history | edited | Jeff Bowman | CC BY-SA 3.0 | added 22 characters in body |
| Nov 3, 2015 at 23:01 | comment | added | Jeff Bowman | @dodgethesteamroller In-depth discussions of a "contrarian school" like that are probably best suited to their own answer. Personally, I find that the Google Testing Blog does a pretty good job describing the virtues of fast, tightly-scoped automated tests alongside system-in-context tests. In case you found it unclear, I list the test pyramid here as a useful model or starting point, not as an excuse to stop thinking as an engineer. | |
| Nov 3, 2015 at 22:38 | comment | added | dodgethesteamroller | ... consequently, Fowler et al., in arguing that less effort should be spent on integration tests and user acceptance tests because they are too difficult to write in a robust and maintainable way, are really just providing an ex post facto excuse for why they haven't figured out how to test well at higher levels. | |
| Nov 3, 2015 at 22:32 | comment | added | dodgethesteamroller | A contrarian school of software QA, the context-driven testing movement, is in part devoted to disputing that there exist any such useful general rules of thumb as the Testing Pyramid. In particular, the seminal texts of the movement give many examples where integration tests are far more valuable than other kinds of tests (because they test the system in context, as a system).... | |
| Nov 3, 2015 at 22:26 | comment | added | dodgethesteamroller | +1 for "A test that is a perfect mirror of its implementation isn't really testing anything at all." All too common. I call this the Doppelganger Antipattern. | |
| Nov 3, 2015 at 16:06 | history | edited | Jeff Bowman | CC BY-SA 3.0 | Choose better words. |
| Nov 2, 2015 at 19:43 | review | First posts | |||
| Nov 2, 2015 at 21:41 | |||||
| Nov 2, 2015 at 19:39 | history | answered | Jeff Bowman | CC BY-SA 3.0 |