Comments on: Writing unit tests can be fun http://www.markhneedham.com/blog/2009/04/25/writing-unit-tests-can-be-fun/ Thoughts on Software Development Sat, 11 Feb 2012 23:17:00 +0000 hourly 1 http://wordpress.org/?v=3.3.1 By: Pawel Brodzinski http://www.markhneedham.com/blog/2009/04/25/writing-unit-tests-can-be-fun/comment-page-1/#comment-15529 Pawel Brodzinski Tue, 28 Apr 2009 07:45:09 +0000 http://www.markhneedham.com/blog/?p=1167#comment-15529 Whether the task is boring or not depends on person exercising it. E.g. exploratory testing is generally considered as boring too and I always enjoyed doing it since it gave me a freedom to move wherever I felt like and it brought some rivalry between tester and developer (which is fun). I think the same is with unit testing. It is generally considered as rather boring task. As far as you find fun writing them - good for you. It does mean your unit test are most likely great. On the other hand there are many developers out there who treat them as necessary evil and write them only because someone told them to do so. It's no surprise it bores them. Whether the task is boring or not depends on person exercising it. E.g. exploratory testing is generally considered as boring too and I always enjoyed doing it since it gave me a freedom to move wherever I felt like and it brought some rivalry between tester and developer (which is fun).

I think the same is with unit testing. It is generally considered as rather boring task. As far as you find fun writing them – good for you. It does mean your unit test are most likely great. On the other hand there are many developers out there who treat them as necessary evil and write them only because someone told them to do so. It’s no surprise it bores them.

]]> By: Gil Zilberfeld http://www.markhneedham.com/blog/2009/04/25/writing-unit-tests-can-be-fun/comment-page-1/#comment-15375 Gil Zilberfeld Sun, 26 Apr 2009 05:41:58 +0000 http://www.markhneedham.com/blog/?p=1167#comment-15375 Mark, Good response. I've written one here: http://blog.typemock.com/2009/04/unit-testing-is-boring.html The comments conversation is interesting. While I agree with what you write, you need to go down the path of unit testing for a while, trying and getting used to TDD or pair programming to understand that. But if you try to explain to people who haven't tried anything of that - well to them it's just about writing "additional" code. There's no convincing argument that doesn't involve their experience. At least, I haven't found one. Gil Mark,

Good response. I’ve written one here: http://blog.typemock.com/2009/04/unit-testing-is-boring.html
The comments conversation is interesting. While I agree with what you write, you need to go down the path of unit testing for a while, trying and getting used to TDD or pair programming to understand that. But if you try to explain to people who haven’t tried anything of that – well to them it’s just about writing “additional” code. There’s no convincing argument that doesn’t involve their experience.

At least, I haven’t found one.

Gil

]]> By: DotNetShoutout http://www.markhneedham.com/blog/2009/04/25/writing-unit-tests-can-be-fun/comment-page-1/#comment-15344 DotNetShoutout Sat, 25 Apr 2009 20:50:10 +0000 http://www.markhneedham.com/blog/?p=1167#comment-15344 <strong>Writing unit tests can be fun at Mark Needham...</strong> Thank you for submitting this cool story - Trackback from DotNetShoutout... Writing unit tests can be fun at Mark Needham…

Thank you for submitting this cool story – Trackback from DotNetShoutout…

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