[TIP] A quick guide to testing (for the khmer project)

[C. Titus Brown]

On Wed, Jul 23, 2014 at 10:56:12AM -0500, Terry Peppers wrote:
> The only thing I would add in the section about adding tests for new code
> is whether or not you give a darn about the type of test itself. Being
> ignorant to khmer - and really to much of what you do Dr. Brown - would it
> make a different to contributors to understand the differences between a
> unit test and say an integration test. Again YMMV with terminology and
> usage, but what atomic type of test should someone add if they've added
> something new? Unit only? What if that new code touches some other part of
> the system, should there be a unit and integration approach.
> 
> I have no idea.
> 
> It's almost like you say what I just said in your three steps, but I prefer
> a more explicit approach and definition to the problem.
> 
> My $.02.

Hey Terry,

thanks for the comment -- rather than lay down further rules (it's hard
enough for people to sort through our documentation!) I'd like to link to
discussions.  Do you have suggestions for a good, concise discussion of
the difference between unit tests and functional tests?

thanks,
--titus

> On Wed, Jul 23, 2014 at 10:08 AM, C. Titus Brown <ctb at msu.edu> wrote:
> 
> > I teach undergrads, and they are often starting with no version control,
> > little Python, highly variable programming experience, and no automated
> > testing; it's a complete disaster.  If I had 'em for two terms I could
> > do more.
> >
> > I also work to educate scientists, and while they take to testing like
> > ducks
> > to water (*slight exaggeration) like many inexperienced programmers the
> > combination of VCS, Python, and automated testing sinks them well before
> > they get to TDD.
> >
> > tl; dr? I have lots of experience and am choosing to spend my time on other
> > things than teaching TDD :)
> >
> > --titus
> >
> > On Wed, Jul 23, 2014 at 03:03:41PM +0000, Marcin Tustin wrote:
> > > What have you found is the difficulty in teaching it? The only problems
> > I have found in teaching it are that people are unwilling to try it at all.
> > Once they try it, they become comfortable with it very quickly.
> > >
> > > -----Original Message-----
> > > From: C. Titus Brown [mailto:ctb at msu.edu]
> > > Sent: Wednesday, July 23, 2014 11:03 AM
> > > To: Marcin Tustin
> > > Cc: tip at lists.idyll.org
> > > Subject: Re: [TIP] A quick guide to testing (for the khmer project)
> > >
> > > Yes, I know how TDD works, but I don't use it on my projects and I've
> > found that it is very difficult to teach.  YMMV but there you are :).
> > >
> > > best,
> > > --titus
> > >
> > > On Wed, Jul 23, 2014 at 03:00:01PM +0000, Marcin Tustin wrote:
> > > > This encodes the code first, write tests afterward approach to
> > development. It's bad because it's *hard*. It's hard to come up with good
> > test cases post hoc, because there's a lot of analysis to do (which is made
> > easier when you write the code, because you're already thinking of those
> > things), and because code not written to be tested is more difficult to
> > test. TDD solves these problems by merging the development and testing
> > activities into one step.
> > > >
> > > > -----Original Message-----
> > > > From: testing-in-python-bounces at lists.idyll.org
> > > > [mailto:testing-in-python-bounces at lists.idyll.org] On Behalf Of C.
> > > > Titus Brown
> > > > Sent: Wednesday, July 23, 2014 10:12 AM
> > > > To: tip at lists.idyll.org
> > > > Subject: [TIP] A quick guide to testing (for the khmer project)
> > > >
> > > > http://khmer.readthedocs.org/en/docs-hackathon/dev/a-quick-guide-to-te
> > > > sting.html
> > > >
> > > > comments, thoughts?
> > > > _______________________________________________
> > > > testing-in-python mailing list
> > > > testing-in-python at lists.idyll.org
> > > > http://lists.idyll.org/listinfo/testing-in-python
> > >
> > > --
> > > C. Titus Brown, ctb at msu.edu
> >
> > --
> > C. Titus Brown, ctb at msu.edu
> >
> > _______________________________________________
> > testing-in-python mailing list
> > testing-in-python at lists.idyll.org
> > http://lists.idyll.org/listinfo/testing-in-python
> >

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-- 
C. Titus Brown, ctb at msu.edu