[TIP] Feedback request: flake8-aaa

James Cooke me at jamescooke.info
Sun Sep 16 06:11:11 PDT 2018


Hi Daniel,

> Your plugin seems to be really helpful, especially for young programmers.

Thanks for the kind words :D

>  I am pretty sure that I will enforce the usage of this plugin for my junior
>  developers :-P.

That sounds great - I'm interested to know how it goes. One caveat would be
that, as with all checkers, they can be exploited. Just because a test might
pass the checks in flake8-aaa doesn't make it a "good" test, any more than code
that passes flake8 is "good" code.

> By the way: do you know a way to help young developers to understand test
> driven development and to implement it in their workflow?

I don't know for sure, but I think that the "Test Driven Development: By
Example" book by Kent Beck is a great resource for this because:

* It introduces the red, green, refactor process. I think that this process is
  what you want to replace the python shell and or "main script" usage.

* It shows how DRY can be applied between tests and SUTs. I think this will
  help improve the quality of written tests.

* Less related to TDD, it shows the value of writing detailed to-do lists and
  finishing a day's work at the red state. These things have helped me be more
  efficient when coding and more able to put down and pick up work, especially
  helpful when interruptions are common.

My guess is you might also find value with "gatekeepers" - tests that are run
on CVS branches to assert that new code has test coverage and passes code
quality requirements.

Hope that's helpful.

Cheers,

James



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