What are the top misconceptions and myths about TDD?
Test Driven Development (TDD) means “Test Driven Development” which is also referred to as test-driven design is a primarily-accepted and broadly acknowledged methodology in the field of software development. It has become well-liked over the last few decades. The primary goal of TDD is to make the code simple, clear, and bug-free. It typically relies on repetitive or tedious unit tests which are executed on the source code being developed. TDD starts with designing as well as developing tests for all functions of an application. The benefits of TDD have been tested on real projects by big giant companies like IBM, Microsoft, and Springer, and they found that such procedure is enormously beneficial. Here are some common misconceptions about TDD (Test Driven Development):
(1) Misconception 1- TDD (Test Driven Development) is a Time-consuming Method
Every single product development team tries to send a feature-rich product under a specific time period and entirely cost-friendly budget. TDD testing is highly effective and creative process to calculate everlasting advantages. In spite of the fact that, incorporating TDD methods in a complicated project is some way or another projected to bungle up pre-chosen due dates. Yet considering it from the other end, we see that a Test Driven Development system implementation actually draws out developer’s productivity and boost the performance of the project. Fundamentally, it reduces the time-consuming procedures by reducing the rate of flaws and defects found during the application deployment stage. All testers concur that later settling is mundane and tricky, which can be repaid by Test Driven Development process. Any issues in the initial production risk the position and repute of the company in the market. Overall, TDD can reduce customer abandonment, boosts the productivity of the developer, increase the growth factor of your app, and decreases the costs of customer service.
(2) Misconception 2- TDD is a Software Design Technique
The fact is that TDD isn’t a software design technique approach yet it does assists in better software design. By building up the code utilizing the Test Driven Development best practices; it naturally prompts a superior outlined code as it isn’t likely to make significant test cases for a very low-quality code. However, the design of the app still should be taken into consideration by having a reasonable thought of things like data structures, scalability, design patterns, feasibility, and overall system design and architecture considerations.
(3) Misconception 3- Writing all tests before you Start the Code
The reason it is tough for developers to imagine Test Driven Development working is because software design is an iterative, discovery-driven procedure. Contrary to common belief, architects don’t design the entire skyscraper before any work begins. 100% design-up-front is a misconception in every kind of engineering. The design is exploratory. We try something out, throw them away, and try dissimilar things until we achieve something that we like. Now true, if you wrote all tests up front before you wrote a line of execution code, that would hinder the exploration procedure, but that’s not how successful Test Driven Development works. Instead:
- Write a single test
- Watch it fail
- Implement the code
- Watch the test pass
- Do again
(4) Misconception 4- Every single thing Needs Unit Tests
Unit tests work perfectly for pure functions — functions which:
- Given the similar input, always return the same result
- No adverse effects- (do not mutate shared state, talk to the network, save data, draw things to screen, etc…)
Hence, Unit tests aren’t solely for pure functions, but the less code relies on any shared state or I/O dependencies; the simpler it will be for testing. There are some codes that won’t be easy to unit test. Loads of your code will draw to the screen, capture user input, talk to the network, query a database, and so on. The code responsible for all of that is impure, thus it is tough to test with unit tests. People end up mocking database drivers, user I/O, network I/O, and all sorts of other things in an attempt to follow the rule that your units need to be tested in isolation. Trying to use unit tests for I/O dependent code will cause troubles and those who criticize that test-first is hard are falling into that trap.
To summarize TDD doesn’t replace traditional testing instead, it defines a proven method to ensure successful unit testing. Explore our exceptional Software Testing Services and get better results by utilizing one of them.
