<br><br><div class="gmail_quote">On Thu, Mar 24, 2011 at 1:37 AM, Gregory P. Smith <span dir="ltr"><<a href="mailto:greg@krypto.org">greg@krypto.org</a>></span> wrote:<br><blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="margin:0 0 0 .8ex;border-left:1px #ccc solid;padding-left:1ex;">
<br><div class="gmail_quote"><div class="im">On Wed, Mar 23, 2011 at 7:06 AM, Alfredo Deza <span dir="ltr"><<a href="mailto:alfredodeza@gmail.com" target="_blank">alfredodeza@gmail.com</a>></span> wrote:<br></div><div class="im">
<blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="margin:0 0 0 .8ex;border-left:1px #ccc solid;padding-left:1ex">
<div><br></div><div>I am about to give a presentation about testing in a couple of days and the audience is in its majority a </div><div>"we do not write tests" one :(</div><div><br></div><div>If you had to name the single most important reason why you need to write tests (or keep up with them) what</div>
<div>would that reason be?</div></blockquote><div><br></div></div><div>What Natalia and Lars have said resonates best with me so far.</div><div><br></div><div>Ask the audience this: Who is going to maintain the code you write in the long term?</div>
<div><br></div><div>Often not you, the original author(s). Certainly not the you in the same state of mind and knowledge about the details of the code base that you have at the moment you originally wrote it. Write tests so that you don't have to keep all of that in your mind and so that other people can become productive quickly in that code base.</div>
<div><br></div><div><br></div><div>Want more? pose this question: Have you ever jumped into a project written by others and needed to make changes without time to understand the entire system yourself?</div><div><br></div>
<div>This is quite common in large projects and code bases. Without easy to run tests doing such changes even if they are supposed to be simple refactorings that change no logic is a big effort.</div><div><br></div><div>
Tests are a form of API contract, they both verify and document a set of specific behaviors.</div>
<div><br></div><font color="#888888"><div>-gps</div><div><br></div></font><blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="margin:0 0 0 .8ex;border-left:1px #ccc solid;padding-left:1ex"><div class="im"><div><br></div><div>You can reply with multiple ones, but I am interested in the one you think is *the* mot important one.</div>
<div><br></div><div>One thing to consider though is to think about the problem from their perspective: "Why do I need to write tests?"</div>
<div>I want to make a dent in that crippled thinking!</div><div><br></div><div>I also posted the question in Convore but not everybody is in there, plus I know that I get the best quality</div><div>testing-related answers here :)</div>
<div><br></div><div>Any feedback is *greatly* appreciated!</div></div></blockquote></div></blockquote><div><br></div><div>These are *all* good answers and I really appreciate all the input from you guys.</div><div><br></div>
<div>I finished my slides and information last night and I am presenting today. I'm sure I will be able to pull this one off!</div><div><br></div><div> </div><blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="margin:0 0 0 .8ex;border-left:1px #ccc solid;padding-left:1ex;">
<div class="gmail_quote"><blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="margin:0 0 0 .8ex;border-left:1px #ccc solid;padding-left:1ex"><div class="im"><div><br></div><font color="#888888"><div><br></div><div>-Alfredo</div>
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