An Introduction to

Test Driven Development

Jacinto Limjap, Jr.
Microsoft Most Valuable Professional – Visual C#
Senior Software Design Engineer, Cormant Technologies
 Agenda
• What is TDD?
• What is TDD not?
• Arrange, Act, Assert
• TDD Mindset
• How to test in isolation?
• What about the database?
• Integration tests suck because...
•
 What is TDD?
• Using unit tests to design software
• Allows change in code without fear of
(inadvertently ) changing
functionality
• Produces loosely coupled objects and
methods with single responsibilities
 What is TDD?
• Unit tests are just side effects: main
point is DESIGN
• Write tests first, code later (?!)

 What is TDD not?
• Substitute for QA testing
• Necessarily means successful project
• Silver bullet
 Writing tests
• Think about how you want to express
your code and intentions
• Think about inputs, and intended
output
• Separate small, isolated areas of
functionality
•
 Arrange, Act, Assert
• Arrange all necessary preconditions
and inputs
• Act on the object or method under
test
• Assert that the expected results have
occurred
•
Mindset
 Red
• New code
– Write test before implementing
class/method
– Internal workings of classes/methods
should not matter
• Existing code
– Write test to reproduce bug
 Green
• Write least possible code to pass all
tests
• Take shortcuts if necessary
 Refactor!
• Applies to both implementation code
and unit test code
• Change code without changing
functionality (ergo, without
introducing bugs)
• Remove implementation shortcuts –
make sure software design is
sound/follows tenets of OOP
• Optimize for
design/performance/maintainability
•
Rinse and Repeat! 
How to test in isolation?
• Classes and methods should have
single responsibility(!!!)
• Loose coupling
•
 How to test in isolation?
• Stubs
– Method returns a specified result,
e.g., property getter returns a
constant value
• Mocks
– Asserting that a certain method has
been called within a test
– Test checks for the method call, not
the result, but some tests check for
both

 What about the DB?
• Integration tests
– Makes sure everything works together
– Also applies to the file system, web
services, etc...
– Handles everything that can fail
without your absolute control

 Integration testing sucks
because...
• Fragile Tests
– Depends on state of external system
– Breakage cause lost confidence on
tests – even if it's not the tests' fault
• Usually leaves artifacts behind (files,
orphaned DB data)

Question and Answer

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