Personally, I always say that system level test are the best and only ones that we should write, if they could be run in a few seconds, in isolation by several developers at the same time.
In my personal experience, the systems that I work with are composed of several docens of moving parts, so system level test end up being too slow, brittle and hard to debug.
I wasn't there, but I think that is a big reason why unit test were born, out of pragmatism.
As Stéphane says in the comment, you need a good mix of test, but tests are not a substitute for thinking!
Have had many hats on in my life: Developer, Team Lead, Scrum Master, Architect and Product Owner. Now back to developer \o/ Interested in product discovery, quality assurance and language design.
Personally, I always say that system level test are the best and only ones that we should write, if they could be run in a few seconds, in isolation by several developers at the same time.
100x this!
Oh and don't forget: Collaborate with the business representative (product manager, product owner, business analyst, whatever) on your high-level test cases! You will be surprised how good both of your understanding of that tested feature will become.
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Mr. Coplein is above my pay-grade, so I will let Uncle Bob argue with him :)
m.youtube.com/watch?v=KtHQGs3zFAM
Personally, I always say that system level test are the best and only ones that we should write, if they could be run in a few seconds, in isolation by several developers at the same time.
In my personal experience, the systems that I work with are composed of several docens of moving parts, so system level test end up being too slow, brittle and hard to debug.
I wasn't there, but I think that is a big reason why unit test were born, out of pragmatism.
As Stéphane says in the comment, you need a good mix of test, but tests are not a substitute for thinking!
I would recommend Rich Hickey talk "Hammock Driven Development" m.youtube.com/watch?v=f84n5oFoZBc (all talks by Rich Hickey are excellent!) and Uncle Bob blog blog.cleancoder.com
Thanks for the question and the pdf!
100x this!
Oh and don't forget: Collaborate with the business representative (product manager, product owner, business analyst, whatever) on your high-level test cases! You will be surprised how good both of your understanding of that tested feature will become.