[TIP] Interface vs Implementation Testing

[Titus Brown]

On Tue, Apr 17, 2007 at 01:19:06PM -0500, Kumar McMillan wrote:
-> I'm with Michal in that the interface test ensures that your
-> implementation works (as long as you write the interface test well).
-> 
-> Here is a major problem with testing implementation: when the
-> implementation changes your tests will break.  Broken tests should
-> indicate the failure of a component, but in this case it would not.
-> You might even say to someone else on your team: "The tests are broken
-> but it still works, pay not attention."  In fact, you may even hold
-> off on updating your tests until you "get around to it" since you
-> kinda know things still work.  You see where I'm going with that.  I
-> tell developers on my team to **only** test interfaces and **never**
-> test implementation and will slap wrists if I have to :)

*boggle*

Why not delete failing tests when the code they're testing no longer
exists, and replace them with the tests that you wrote for the new code?

--titus