There has been a bit of traffic on the Growing Object Oriented Software (GOOS) mailing list recently about how many tests you should write, and what sort they should be. Understandably it got back to the perennial discussion about what constitutes a unit test, what an integration test, what an acceptance test. And where does the testing pyramid fit into all this?
All important questions and yet somehow ephemeral in their unfathomability.
Torbjörn Kalin got to the heart of the matter with his concise response:
“What is the purpose of the test? What is it that we want to test? How do we test it?”
It doesn’t matter what you call it. The label is incidental. Turn to the rubber duck on top of your monitor and earnestly ask:
“What is it that I am worried might fail?”
If you don’t answer the question honestly, then Torquemada might just come a calling.
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