I had a pretty similar one a few years ago, when I realised that writing tests first, is like drawing a blueprint for your application.
You can't build the wrong thing if the rules for what the thing should do are already written and, much like you point out in this article, you can't break the thing without seeing that it's wrong compared to the blueprint.
Then if you need to change the thing, you change the blueprints and alter the thing to fit them.
In general, it's always great to see folks discovering the value of testing 🙂
I won't lie when I say that I'm guilty of writing tests. It's never struck me as important and I've yet to see it be taught in a class but after reading this post and that comment, WOW.
That helps so much and explains the importance in a much better way! Awesome post!
You've touched on my number one bug-bear about programming classes in general (online, university or otherwise).
The attention testing receives is typically well below insufficient. Especially when, in a high functioning team and environment (and cross-functional environment for that matter) you're going to be spending upwards of 50% of your time writing tests for your code rather than the code itself.
This has slowly started to shift in the online realm, but in my experience universities and other "legitimate" institutions are lagging behind in this regard.
Test away, my friend. Test away!
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That's a great epiphany!
I had a pretty similar one a few years ago, when I realised that writing tests first, is like drawing a blueprint for your application.
You can't build the wrong thing if the rules for what the thing should do are already written and, much like you point out in this article, you can't break the thing without seeing that it's wrong compared to the blueprint.
Then if you need to change the thing, you change the blueprints and alter the thing to fit them.
In general, it's always great to see folks discovering the value of testing 🙂
I won't lie when I say that I'm guilty of writing tests. It's never struck me as important and I've yet to see it be taught in a class but after reading this post and that comment, WOW.
That helps so much and explains the importance in a much better way! Awesome post!
You've touched on my number one bug-bear about programming classes in general (online, university or otherwise).
The attention testing receives is typically well below insufficient. Especially when, in a high functioning team and environment (and cross-functional environment for that matter) you're going to be spending upwards of 50% of your time writing tests for your code rather than the code itself.
This has slowly started to shift in the online realm, but in my experience universities and other "legitimate" institutions are lagging behind in this regard.
Test away, my friend. Test away!