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davideisinger.com/content/notes/good-tests/index.md
2023-05-22 22:51:23 -04:00

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---
title: "Good Tests"
date: 2023-05-12T23:40:19-04:00
draft: false
---
_(Notes for a Viget article I'm putting together)_
* Most importantly: **give you confidence to make changes**
* Focus on two kinds of tests: unit and integration
* Unit: test your objects/functions directly
* Integration: simulated browser interactions
* If you're building an API, you might also have request specs
* But ideally you're testing the full integration of UI + API
* Unit tests
* Put complex logic into easily testable objects/functions
* This is where [TDD][1] can come into play
* Avoid over-stubbing/mocking -- what are you even testing
* It is OK to go down the stack in your unit tests
* Integration tests
* You need proper end-to-end testing
* Set up your data (fresh per test)
* Visit a page
* Interact with it
* Make assertions about the results
* Coverage
* We shoot for 100% in SimpleCov (So all the Ruby is tested)
* Some consider this too high or too burdensome -- I don't
* If it's 100%, you instantly know if you have any untested code
* If it's, say, 94%, and you add 100 lines, six of those can be untested -- hope they're perfect!
* In other words, at less than 100% coverage, you don't know if your new feature is fully covered or not
* Occasionally you have to ignore some code -- e.g. something that only runs in production
* Third-party/network calls
* Major libraries often have mock services (e.g. [stripe-mock][2])
* VCR is … OK but can become a maintenance problem
* Block access to the web
* A better approach
* Move your integration code into a module
* Create a second stub module with the same API
* Use [JSON Schema][3] to ensure stub stays in sync (i.e. both the real client and the stub client validate against the schema)
* This will lead to more reliable tests and also more robust code
* Flaky tests are bad
* They eat up a lot of development time (esp. as build times increase)
* Try to stay on top of them and squash them as they arise
* Some frameworks have `retry` options/libraries that can help (bandage not cure)
* In general, though, flaky tests suck and generally indicate lack of quality with either your code or your tools
* So write better code or pick better tools
[3]: https://json-schema.org/
[1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Test-driven_development
[2]: https://github.com/stripe/stripe-mock
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