Testing
Table of contents
Why people don't write tests?
People don't write tests for the following reasons:
lack of knowledge on how to do it
their code is not testable
fear of being judged due to their own ignorance
lack of a competent person in the team (e.g. tech lead) who is aware of the benefits of writing tests
Usually, this is accompanied by additional excuses such as:
why bother, it works anyway?
I tested it manually
I don't have time for that
it's too much work
what will it actually give me?
nobody writes tests in other companies either
this application is not widely used
Unfortunately, this is the reality in many cases, but it can be changed.
Why test at all?
It is enough to reverse the previously given examples and everything will immediately make sense. The following steps should be taken:
acquire knowledge on how to test code
improve programming skills. Writing tests requires good quality code. Otherwise, tests become very complex and time-consuming.
What do we gain when we write tests?
detecting errors during development
we have confidence that our code works (if properly tested)
we don't have to test anything manually - tests check the application for us
we immediately detect regression errors
we write better, maintainable code
in the long-term perspective, we save enormous amounts of time
we sleep more peacefully :)
When not to test?
There are situations where writing tests is not advisable.
In the case of creating a prototype or MVP, we want to deliver a solution as quickly as possible. Such code will probably be heavily modified or completely unnecessary. Therefore, testing it would be a waste of time.
When dealing with "legacy code", testing may prove to be very complicated or impossible. Such code requires refactoring or complete rewriting.