Concept
Test-driven development
Test-driven development (TDD) is a software development process relying on software requirements being converted to test cases before software is fully developed, and tracking all software development by repeatedly testing the software against all test cases. This is as opposed to software being developed first and test cases created later. Software engineer Kent Beck, who is credited with having developed or "rediscovered" the technique, stated in 2003 that TDD encourages simple designs and inspires confidence. Test-driven development is related to the test-first programming concepts of extreme programming, begun in 1999, but more recently has created more general interest in its own right. Programmers also apply the concept to improving and debugging legacy code developed with older techniques. The following sequence is based on the book Test-Driven Development by Example:
- Add a test The adding of a new feature begins by writing a test that passes iff the feature's specifications are met. The developer can discover these specifications by asking about use cases and user stories. A key benefit of test-driven development is that it makes the developer focus on requirements before writing code. This is in contrast with the usual practice, where unit tests are only written after code.
- Run all tests. The new test should fail for expected reasons This shows that new code is actually needed for the desired feature. It validates that the test harness is working correctly. It rules out the possibility that the new test is flawed and will always pass.
- Write the simplest code that passes the new test Inelegant or hard code is acceptable, as long as it passes the test. The code will be honed anyway in Step 5. No code should be added beyond the tested functionality.
- All tests should now pass If any fail, the new code must be revised until they pass. This ensures the new code meets the test requirements and does not break existing features.
Official source
About this result
This page is automatically generated and may contain information that is not correct, complete, up-to-date, or relevant to your search query. The same applies to every other page on this website. Please make sure to verify the information with EPFL's official sources.
Ontological neighbourhood
Related courses (32)
ME-443: Hydroacoustic for hydropower plants
Introduction to pressure wave propagation phenomena in hydraulic circuits, water hammer calculations, transient behaviour of hydroelectric plants, 1D numerical simulation of the dynamic behaviour of F
CS-311: The software enterprise - from ideas to products
This course teaches the journey taken by software engineering teams from incipient ideas to software products that solve real problems for real people.
MATH-656: Numerical linear algebra for Koopman and DMD
The Dynamic Mode Decomposition (DMD) has become a tool of trade in computational data driven analysis of complex dynamical systems. The DMD is deeply connected with the Koopman spectral analysis of no
Related concepts (19)
Unit testing
In computer programming, unit testing is a software testing method by which individual units of source code—sets of one or more computer program modules together with associated control data, usage procedures, and operating procedures—are tested to determine whether they are fit for use. It is a standard step in development and implementation approaches such as Agile. Before unit testing, capture and replay testing tools were the norm. In 1997, Kent Beck and Erich Gamma developed and released JUnit, a unit test framework that became popular with Java developers.
Agile software development
In software development, agile practices (sometimes written "Agile") include requirements discovery and solutions improvement through the collaborative effort of self-organizing and cross-functional teams with their customer(s)/end user(s), Popularized in the 2001 Manifesto for Agile Software Development, these values and principles were derived from and underpin a broad range of software development frameworks, including Scrum and Kanban.
Regression testing
Regression testing (rarely, non-regression testing) is re-running functional and non-functional tests to ensure that previously developed and tested software still performs as expected after a change. If not, that would be called a regression. Changes that may require regression testing include bug fixes, software enhancements, changes, and even substitution of electronic components (hardware). As regression test suites tend to grow with each found defect, test automation is frequently involved.