You have good instincts. You should strive for an orthogonal approach,
This is true, of course, you should try to think of a way to independently verify what the code does, but I would suggest there isn't any reason to go beserk about it.

Consider the fact that the algorithm in both code and test may be the same to start with, but they may diverge later. You might go in and refactor the main code, for efficiency, let's say, and then the older style of code out in the tests will be an excellent check on your work.

In general, tests should be relatively easy to write, or else you (or worse, your boss) will burn-out on it, and start skipping them altogether. A lot of things that would be Bad And Wrong in your real code are okay in your tests... e.g. cut-and-paste is a much more valid approach.

In reply to Re^2: Philosophical question about testing by doom
in thread Philosophical question about testing by rastoboy

Title:
Use:  <p> text here (a paragraph) </p>
and:  <code> code here </code>
to format your post, it's "PerlMonks-approved HTML":


  • Posts are HTML formatted. Put <p> </p> tags around your paragraphs. Put <code> </code> tags around your code and data!
  • Titles consisting of a single word are discouraged, and in most cases are disallowed outright.
  • Read Where should I post X? if you're not absolutely sure you're posting in the right place.
  • Please read these before you post! —
  • Posts may use any of the Perl Monks Approved HTML tags:
    a, abbr, b, big, blockquote, br, caption, center, col, colgroup, dd, del, details, div, dl, dt, em, font, h1, h2, h3, h4, h5, h6, hr, i, ins, li, ol, p, pre, readmore, small, span, spoiler, strike, strong, sub, summary, sup, table, tbody, td, tfoot, th, thead, tr, tt, u, ul, wbr
  • You may need to use entities for some characters, as follows. (Exception: Within code tags, you can put the characters literally.)
            For:     Use:
    & &amp;
    < &lt;
    > &gt;
    [ &#91;
    ] &#93;
  • Link using PerlMonks shortcuts! What shortcuts can I use for linking?
  • See Writeup Formatting Tips and other pages linked from there for more info.