Re:My favourite Git commit (2019)
by hinkley on Sunday March 08, 2020 @03:18PM
(#22519927)
Getting people to write tests is hard. Getting them to write matchers... it’s like you’re asking them to fly. Which is a shame because you can avoid so, so much test boilerplate by writing a high quality custom matcher.
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Re:My favourite Git commit (2019)
by jfkebwjsbx on Sunday March 08, 2020 @03:53PM
(#22520139)
What do you mean by matcher?
> "matchers" [...] let you test values in different ways
Example docs for Jest's matchers: https://jestjs.io/docs/en/using-matchers
Generally speaking, if you use a specific matcher, you get a better (more informative) error message when the test fails.
Re:My favourite Git commit (2019)
by jfkebwjsbx on Sunday March 08, 2020 @04:50PM
(#22520521)
Ah, the common testing functions like `assert_equal`. Thanks!
Right, and some APIs let you write your own. Getting a custom one to hand out actionable error messages is a bit tricky but quite worth it.
Re:My favourite Git commit (2019)
by hashtagMERKY on Sunday March 08, 2020 @03:52PM
(#22520136)
Not a software engineer, sorry. What’s a matcher? Google didn’t help.
Not to worry. Some test frameworks do not expose them, so people often don’t even to know to want for them. User allover did a respectable job of explaining.
IME (python webdev) most test frameworks do expose some form of this, but I’ve never heard them called “matchers”. So perhaps people know & use them, but not by that name.
I mean expose the ability to write your own. When I first used them, I thought all frameworks allowed this, then bumped into some that didn't, or at least not in the popular version at the time.