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A comment on Unit Tests Are Overrated: Rethinking Testing Strategies. Parent comment

Re:Unit Tests Are Overrated: Rethinking Testing Strategies by vouwfietsman on Wednesday August 23, 2023 @08:06AM (#37234607)
Actually no, the "unit" in unit tests is about isolation: the test can be executed as an independent unit, not about a unit of code (single class/method). If you search around, the leading experts who popularized unit tests described it as such.

It is perfectly fine to test multiple classes as a unit, in fact you probably already do so, as I would be extremely surprised if you mock your string class in all your unit tests.

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Re:Unit Tests Are Overrated: Rethinking Testing Strategies by mattmanser on Wednesday August 23, 2023 @01:31PM (#37239385)
If you have to 'search around' for your definition and make a dubious appeal to authority without citing any of those experts, perhaps you need to wonder if it's your definition that's wrong.
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Re:Unit Tests Are Overrated: Rethinking Testing Strategies by vouwfietsman on Wednesday August 23, 2023 @02:52PM (#37240523)
It was not my intention to present you with such a major challenge, my deepest apologies.

https://martinfowler.com/bliki/UnitTest.html

Martin Fowler

Although I start with the notion of the unit being a class, I often take a bunch of closely related classes and treat them as a single unit.

https://medium.com/@_ericelliott/i-use-the-well-known-defini...

Kent Beck

Unit tests test individual units (modules, functions, classes) in isolation from the rest of the program

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Re:Unit Tests Are Overrated: Rethinking Testing Strategies by mattmanser on Thursday August 24, 2023 @07:20AM (#37247550)
Although I start with the notion of the unit being a class...

Such great evidence.

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Re:Unit Tests Are Overrated: Rethinking Testing Strategies by vouwfietsman on Thursday August 24, 2023 @02:41PM (#37252917)
Further in the article he goes over exactly why he feels that its allowed to both test a single classe or multiple at once, going as far to give a name to them: solitary vs sociable unit tests.

Then, he goes on to, and let me emphasize this, defend the criticism that other people make that this type of test is not a unit test. (sound familiar?):

Indeed using sociable unit tests was one of the reasons we were criticized for our use of the term "unit testing". I think that the term "unit testing" is appropriate because these tests are tests of the behavior of a single unit. We write the tests assuming everything other than that unit is working correctly.

I'm not sure how thoroughly you're looking to be refuted here but I feel I can't quite do a better job.

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