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I recently started working at a large corporation that transitioned from a waterfall to an agile approach to software development about 2 years ago. As a part of the transition, developers who never fully understood test-driven development decided to start writing unit tests for their code to make it feel more agile.
The results of their efforts are hundreds of unit tests with no clear purpose, goal, naming conventions, or coding standards. While trying to wrap my head around what possible benefit the unit tests offer, the best thing I can say about them is that they prove that random chunks of production code in private and public methods do the same thing as the unit tests which duplicate their logic whenever the constants specified in the unit tests match the values that haven't changed in the DEV database that they never mocked and the database connections and web services don't time out on them.
I guess, in some abstract sense, running these unit tests could provide some benefit to the system, but we could improve the benefits by ignoring the unit tests and hiring a witch doctor to stand next to the source control server, sense the code's ethereal energy, and tell us if the code feels cursed or not.
Know any witch doctors looking for employment?
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Perhaps you could set the server on a nice, comfortable couch and have a psychologist discuss the "daddy issues" with the code, due to inept "parent" programmers..?
Same thing.
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jesarg wrote: but we could improve the benefits by ignoring the unit tests and hiring a witch doctor to stand next to the source control server, sense the code's ethereal energy, and tell us if the code feels cursed or not.
Just along for the ride.
"the meat from that butcher is just the dogs danglies, absolutely amazing cuts of beef." - DaveAuld (2011)
"No, that is just the earthly manifestation of the Great God Retardon." - Nagy Vilmos (2011)
"It is the celestial scrotum of good luck!" - Nagy Vilmos (2011)
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jesarg wrote: stand next to the source control server, sense the code's ethereal energy, and tell us if the code feels cursed or not.
I didn't know it was a recognised technique - I've been doing my testing that way for years... 
Ideological Purity is no substitute for being able to stick your thumb down a pipe to stop the water
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jesarg wrote: hiring a witch doctor to stand next to the source control server
Hmm. I administer a number of SourceSafe data bases. Maybe sacrificing small animals is what I've been missing...
Software Zen: delete this;
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I only know a lazy cargo cult Java team. They turn everything into a hollow useless ritual that's not worth the work you put into it. They also wanted me to write unit tests. The problem was that they were far too agile to provide any specifications about what might be correct and what is not correct. To be precise, they were not able to come up with any specifications at all.
So I was creative and tested everything that might possibly go wrong that came to my mind. The result was that practically all the tests failed, once I checked them in. Oh horror! The build ritual failed! And how did they 'fix' it? No, not by looking at the tests and sorting out where the tests might be too strict or where they might be pointing out some issues. They simply commented out all the code in the tests and checked them in again.
Now the build ritual does not fail anymore and the unit test ritual also has been sucessfully completed. Bravo! Now you can go back to sleep and hold up your build reports with 100% sucessful unit tests when somebody asks.
And from the clouds a mighty voice spoke:
"Smile and be happy, for it could come worse!"
And I smiled and was happy
And it came worse.
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CDP1802 wrote: they were not able to come up with any specifications at all.
Looks quite familiar to me. Someone in our company decided then that we desperately need to get a test tool...
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Keep the managers busy, distract them, so they leave you alone.. lol
I just test, as a user would. I'm a programmer & designer & db admin & test tool. 
*throws a bone to manager to keep him busy with something else* FETCH!
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CDP1802 wrote: Now the build ritual does not fail anymore and the unit test ritual also has been sucessfully completed. Bravo! Now you can go back to sleep and hold up your build reports with 100% sucessful unit tests when somebody asks.
Wouldn't that be NaN% successful? Or did they only comment out the code INSIDE the tests, not the tests themselves?
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Exactly, they commented out everything inside the tests that could potentially fail, mostly the assertions. They did leave the parts which call methods, so that the tests still 'cover' much of the code.
And from the clouds a mighty voice spoke:
"Smile and be happy, for it could come worse!"
And I smiled and was happy
And it came worse.
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That is just really sad. 
The tests are worse than useless, they are misleading because it looks like you have good coverage and are passing all the tests. 
Just because the code works, it doesn't mean that it is good code.
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CDP1802 wrote: cargo cult
The expression I was gonna use! 
There seem to be no lack of cargo culting around agile sadly.
'As programmers go, I'm fairly social. Which still means I'm a borderline sociopath by normal standards.' Jeff Atwood
'I'm French! Why do you think I've got this outrrrrageous accent?' Monty Python and the Holy Grail
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that is the default testing technique used by millions of programmers. unless you have good dedicated programmers who really care about their code this unit testing BS will not yield any fruit...and the catch is if you have good programmers then very rarely they would need unit tests as they will write it right the first time. I deal with such programmers everyday they add 5 items to a list then check if the list has 5 items as if there was some leak in CLR.
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Another reason for NOT using "meaningful nulls". What I actually do for the sake of effortless, by the way. [a meaningful wink to the Nullable "?" class].
Greetings - Jacek
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Stumbled across this gem today. http://pastebin.com/4Nx8yggU[^]
For preservation sake, here is a snippet, but you get the idea:
Public ReadOnly Property BatteryPercent()
Get
If SystemInformation.PowerStatus.BatteryLifePercent.ToString = "1" Then
Return "100%"
ElseIf SystemInformation.PowerStatus.BatteryLifePercent.ToString = "0.99" Then
Return "99%"
ElseIf SystemInformation.PowerStatus.BatteryLifePercent.ToString = "0.98" Then
Return "98%"
ElseIf SystemInformation.PowerStatus.BatteryLifePercent.ToString = "0.97" Then
Return "97%"
... etc
Wow is all I can say.
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And well commented.
I think we can all appreciate the thoroughness of the approach.
_____________________________
Give a man a mug, he drinks for a day. Teach a man to mug...
The difference between an ostrich and the average voter is where they stick their heads.
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Don't know what language this is, but I'm sure you could use the following to reduce the code length:
' ...
Return (SystemInformation.PowerStatus.BatteryLifePercent.ToString *100) & "%"
' . End of function.
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There you go, thinking like a programmer again. Where's that going to get ya?
_____________________________
Give a man a mug, he drinks for a day. Teach a man to mug...
The difference between an ostrich and the average voter is where they stick their heads.
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Actually, it's:
Return (SystemInformation.PowerStatus.BatteryLifePercent * 100).ToString() + "%"
You did the ToString before the multiplication. Note that this:
SystemInformation.PowerStatus.BatteryLifePercent.ToString("p")
...does create a percentage conversion, but since it has decimals and a space it is not equivalent.
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I used & and not + as & can join a string and a number.
+ will only add two nunbers or attach two strings.
I would usually use CStr$() but as I was not to sure what language this was, used & as it's used in a number of languages.
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The "+" operator does work here, it implicitly converts the number to a string and concatenates it to the other. But yes, the "&" operator is for concatenation explicitly.
However, in your example, my key point was that you used the "*" operator between a number and a string...
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I don't know what language uses a * between two strings.
* is usually used to multiply two numbers. EG 123*4 = 492
+ is used to add two numbers. EG 123+4 = 127. 123+"4" = error
& is used to join two numbers, strings or a number and a string. EG 123 & 4 = "1234"
If a language returns 492 or "492" from 123*"4" then in my opinion the language needs an update.
The following Visual Basic 5 code:
Private Sub Form_Load()
Dim a As Integer
Dim b As String
a = 123
b = "4"
MsgBox a * b
End Sub
displays 492, but should display an error acording to other versions of Basic.
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