Front-end Engineer and Tester. I have a course at https://learn.webdriver.io and I do free coding tutorials at https://www.youtube.com/user/medigerati/
This is a really great article. It's well written, and condensed but not oversimplified. Kudos for the great work on it.
I do have a minor complaint: I think the "Cost of Testing Graph" doesn't capture the cost of maintaining automated tests. In the graph, the cost levels out, but in real life, you'll need to keep that automation up to date, along with the need to write more tests as functionality is added. Again, a minor grievance, but figured it's worth mentioned.
"Tests counter this tendency towards calcification by helping developers add new features more confidently." I really like this point and haven't considered it before. By having code that has automation, devs are more likely to take chances with working in it, and therefore it's more likely to be kept up-to-date.
"Start With End-to-End Tests"
I very much agree with this strategy for the points you've made. Trying to write unit tests for spaghetti code is not fun and makes you write really poor tests.
Again, great article and I wish it got more views. Going to share it with my front-end testing newsletter though, so hopefully you'll get some more through there :)
Your point about my graph is spot on. While the cost of maintaining automated tests is significantly lower than manual testing over time, it does continue to grow (at a slower rate) as your test suite grows.
I created that image years ago, so I'll have to dig deep in my archives to see if I can find the original or recreate it. Thanks for the input and the share! 😁
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This is a really great article. It's well written, and condensed but not oversimplified. Kudos for the great work on it.
I do have a minor complaint: I think the "Cost of Testing Graph" doesn't capture the cost of maintaining automated tests. In the graph, the cost levels out, but in real life, you'll need to keep that automation up to date, along with the need to write more tests as functionality is added. Again, a minor grievance, but figured it's worth mentioned.
"Tests counter this tendency towards calcification by helping developers add new features more confidently." I really like this point and haven't considered it before. By having code that has automation, devs are more likely to take chances with working in it, and therefore it's more likely to be kept up-to-date.
"Start With End-to-End Tests"
I very much agree with this strategy for the points you've made. Trying to write unit tests for spaghetti code is not fun and makes you write really poor tests.
Again, great article and I wish it got more views. Going to share it with my front-end testing newsletter though, so hopefully you'll get some more through there :)
Thanks @klamping !
Your point about my graph is spot on. While the cost of maintaining automated tests is significantly lower than manual testing over time, it does continue to grow (at a slower rate) as your test suite grows.
I created that image years ago, so I'll have to dig deep in my archives to see if I can find the original or recreate it. Thanks for the input and the share! 😁