Unit Testing in VS

Can't believe it, every time I look at it, how comical it is - generate unit tests from code.

Yeah, it allows you to get tests up and running quickly, but makes one big supposition - that the code that you're generating a test for actually works.

Make TDD easier, and remove the feature, it's silly.

Martin.

The best software to do "x"....

Hi,

Been pulling my team together for a new project, and whilst doing so, have been looking out for software that allows us to do things properly.
Now, before I start, I have to admit, that I absolutely love TFS, and VSTS, and that really makes it difficult to look for something else out there. Being realistic, to keep costs down in the current economic climate, I have been on the look out for cheaper or free alternatives. It seems that they're few and far between these days.

So first of all - non-VSTS unit testing? Well, clearly we're going to want a mocking framework there - that one is easy - Rhino Mocks. I've used NMock, which was great, but I find that once you're used to it, Rhino is the way to go. I tried Moq but found that it was less powerful than Rhino.

Okay, second on the list - code coverage. This one is difficult, Microsoft used to have a product, Coverage Eye which I used on a few occasions, and worked really well. There's NCover - that's quite expensive now, it seems, almost to the point where I should be considering VSTS which seems a lot better. The only alternative I found was partcover - it works, but the experience isn't at all integrated. And that leads me on to another point...

Unit testing framework... Okay, so the integrated MSTest framework is pretty good, and I get why you'd move the test output to a completely different location to where you would normally run from - to run the tests in isolation. No complaints from me there. However, trying to hook code coverage in to that build location from a coverage component that wasn't IDE integrated, and thus could easily capture the test folder location, is a pain. So much so that I'd suggest that using NUnit is unfortunately a necessity. The trouble is that then we're working development from our IDE, and tests from NUnit, which fires up code coverage. Not too bad a solution, but it can be a pain.

Personally, I'd really like to see something more in the professional versions of VS, what I'm saying is that every organisation is not so big it can afford, or wants to afford the all singing all dancing solution, much as I'm sure most would if it was cheaper. I'd love to see either the integration through VS to be brought a little more to the surface to open up the free version use a little better.

As previously mentioned, I love what Microsoft has done with Team System, and TFS, really I do, and I think for corporations that are able to afford it, they will go with that model. I would given the money, no doubts. Though, the alternative at the moment is really not the most compelling - I know, you say, "Save up and buy the proper version then", but at the moment, simply that's not going to happen, which cheapens the experience.

I think that the opening up of the IDE should be a little like love, you don't know that you've got it until you set it free!

And Microsoft, keep up the good work with these tools - for the first time in a long time, they really are impressive!

Risk, Who needs it?

Hello,

You're a software developer, you love to live by the seat of your pants, right? You can't function without loads of pressure, and the vast amounts of coffee that goes with it right? You'll probably want to stop reading this then!

So many projects and features for a piece of software get into a project plan without consideration to the risks involved. The client wants it, therefore it must go in. Is that a realistic proposition? Well, it might be, depending upon what the feature it is, and whether the inclusion of the feature overrides the risk involved in its implementation.

Something to consider, if late inclusion of a feature into an existing project is going to take that software back to a beta version, and the risk is unknown, would you do it? I wouldn't. You need to know the risks, and you need to be able to predict the worst case scenario, and describe what aspects of the software will be affected.

Given these assessments of impact and risk, you can attach a dollar cost to the cost of implementing the additional cost, versus the cost of not doing so, and always look at the worst case.

Imagine the number of features that started life as a throw away comment, and ended up being a major feature in a piece of software simply would not be there if decision makers knew the true cost of doing someting versus the cost of not doing something.

Business Head Blog Launched!

Hi!

Please visit the freshly launched "business head" blog, when you can rad how to set up and run a business. See it at http://teamplatt-businesshead.blogspot.com

Martin.

Need help with architectures, or coding?

Hi,

If you need help with requirements, architectures, development code and the like, leave me a comment in here, and I'll help you out.

Cheers,

Martin.