Re:Ask HN: Why the Linux Kernel doesn't have unit tests?
by nu11ptr on Friday November 25, 2022 @10:57AM
(#33743555)
Agreed, people tend to over complicate and make testing religious. In reality, testing is nothing more than a means to an end. Ask yourself these questions for your project:
1. Are there pieces that can be tested independently where verification is valuable?
2. What is the impact of a bug or regression?
3. What type of testing is most likely to uncover issues in my product given its architecture and domain?
4. Am I confident to refactor the code base without creating new bugs?
etc. etc. Iow, testing isn't magic, it should be driven by business goals. For example, I use Rust which due its great type system makes some types of code "just work", however, Rust cannot prevent logic errors. This means when I'm writing 'algorithmic code' I tend to write heavy unit tests. When I write API driven code, I tend to use more integration/end-to-end style testing. Do what makes sense for your code and goals. Tests take time and need to be refactored, so they aren't free, but can be valuable.
1. Are there pieces that can be tested independently where verification is valuable?
2. What is the impact of a bug or regression?
3. What type of testing is most likely to uncover issues in my product given its architecture and domain?
4. Am I confident to refactor the code base without creating new bugs?
etc. etc. Iow, testing isn't magic, it should be driven by business goals. For example, I use Rust which due its great type system makes some types of code "just work", however, Rust cannot prevent logic errors. This means when I'm writing 'algorithmic code' I tend to write heavy unit tests. When I write API driven code, I tend to use more integration/end-to-end style testing. Do what makes sense for your code and goals. Tests take time and need to be refactored, so they aren't free, but can be valuable.