[erlang-questions] Unit testing

[David Goehrig]

On Dec 20, 2011, at 11:43 AM, "Yves S. Garret" wrote:

 -- given the general unreliability of software nowadays -- some (any?) form of testing is highly prized in the software development process.
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Well, we use a combination of eunit, some adhoc load generators, and pathogical random event generator scripts. None of this really matters though if you don't properly identify the problem you are solving and characterize the production behavior. 

Software testing does little in my experience but confirm apriori bias and serve to limit refactoring necessary for proper engineering. If you find yourself hesitating to write an alternative implementation to test a theory, you've written too many tests. 

If you program follow contract based programming practices, and test only well defined interfaces (and not internal details, also referred to as black box testing) you'll get more bang for your buck. But this usually requires versioning all of your API calls. 

Hope this helps

Dave