Vladimir Khorikov - Unit Testing Principles, Practices, and Patterns

Thank you for purchasing the MEAP of Unit Testing: Principles, Practices, and Patterns.

Most online and print resources have one drawback: they focus on the basics of unit testing, but dont go much beyond that. Theres a lot of value in such resources, but the learning doesn't end there. There's a next level: not just writing tests, but doing it in a way that gives you the best return on your efforts. When you reach this point in the learning curve, youre pretty much left to your own devices figuring out how to get to that next level.

This book takes you to that next level. It teaches a scientific, precise definition of the ideal unit test. This definition provides a universal frame of reference. After learning it, you will be able to look at many of your tests in a new light and see which of them contribute to the project and which must be refactored or gotten rid of altogether.

If youre an experienced programmer, you most likely already get at the intuitive level some of the ideas taught in this book. This book will help you articulate why the techniques and best practices you've been using all along are so helpful. And don't underestimate this skill: the ability to clearly communicate your ideas to colleagues is priceless.

You dont need to be an expert in unit testing, though youll get more out of this book if you have some unit testing skills. If you don't have much experience with unit testing techniques and best practices, youll learn a lot. In addition to the frame of reference, which you can use to analyze any test in a test suite, the book teaches

• How to refactor the test suite along with the production code it covers.
• How to apply different styles of unit testing.
• Using integration tests to verify the behavior of the system as a whole.
• Identifying and avoiding anti-patterns in unit tests.

In addition to unit tests, this book covers the entire topic of automated testing, so youll also learn about integration and end-to-end tests.

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Vladimir Khorikov

Brief Table of Contents

Part 1:

Part 2:

Part 3:

Part 4:

Part 1

This part of the book will get you up to speed with the current state of unit testing.

In chapter 1, Ill define the goal of unit testing and give an overview of how to differentiate a good test from a bad one. Well talk about coverage metrics and discuss properties of a good unit test in general.

In chapter 2, well look at the definition of "unit test". A seemingly minor disagreement in this definition has led to formation of two schools of unit testing, which well dive into in that chapter too.

Chapter 3 provides a refresher on some basic topics, such as structuring of unit tests, reusing test fixtures, and test parametrization.