DEV Community

Cover image for DevTip: Unit and Integration Testing
Sohail Pathan
Sohail Pathan

Posted on

DevTip: Unit and Integration Testing

Hey Devs,

How many of you don't write tests? Or maybe let me rephrase the question.

Do you like writing test cases for your code?

Well, some of you may say no - It's common, even I used to feel the same way. But then I encountered a situation that made me realize how important writing tests is. Today, I'll tell you why.

First, let's understand the basics:

What is Unit Testing?

Unit testing is the process of testing individual components, or units, of code to ensure they work as intended. It helps identify bugs early and makes debugging easier.

What is Integration Testing?

Integration testing involves testing the interaction between different components or modules of a system. It ensures that these components work together harmoniously and deliver expected results.

Now, let's go back to the example of a book-selling app. The app I built is working fine for some basic events, but I'm not sure how it will handle certain situations.

  1. Let's say 100 users simultaneously try to purchase a book. Will the app handle the load and process all the transactions correctly?

  2. What if a user tries to add a book to their cart, but the book is out of stock? Will the app handle this scenario gracefully and provide the user with appropriate feedback?

These are just a couple of examples, but as the complexity of your code grows, so does the number of possible scenarios and edge cases that need to be considered. Without proper testing, it's hard to guarantee that your code will work flawlessly in all situations.

That's why testing is important.

IDevTip

Liked this tip ? Stay tuned to ApyHub for more such tips.

Happy Coding :)

Top comments (3)

Collapse
 
jonrandy profile image
Jon Randy πŸŽ–οΈ

Professional developer for ~30 years here. I use automated testing extremely rarely

Collapse
 
ranjancse profile image
Ranjan Dailata

Well it depends :)

Coming from the Avionics Domain, where it's mandatory to perform the unit/integration tests, where the code coverage is highly crucial.

Collapse
 
jonrandy profile image
Jon Randy πŸŽ–οΈ

Very true, depends on the domain. Guess I've been lucky enough to avoid them