It's obvious that tests do not cease (edit: typo FIXED!) to evolve after the code is complete. However, it should be stated that (if you do have a solid API) writing tests first has some advantages. Namely, you can make sure you implemented your entire API and that API works.

Once you start scrolling through hundreds of lines of code, it's hard to visualize your API use cleanly because you start to confuse the API with the implementation. Again, I don't do this nearly enough, but it has great merits and this is something I *should* do for larger projects.

By all means, tests should evolve while the program is written -- however boundary coverage should be one of the first kinds of things you think about when testing your API. That is what automated testing is for. If your API passes all tests, and the whole of your API is tested, you won't have any issues with coverage...harder said than done.

Naturally, testing code by hand is critical in validing that the tests themselves are valid.

In reply to Re: Re: Re: Automatic generation of tests by flyingmoose
in thread Automatic generation of tests by DrHyde

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