Assert.Inconclusive and my present almost-TDD compromise
I am trying out Visual studio unit testing framework, the Microsoft alternative to, for instance, nUnit which was my old preferred testing framework (and possibly still is).
At the same time I am not in a project devoted to Test driven development so I can’t use its religion to write tests first and refuse to show any UI progress to the customer. Right or wrong – that is how I perceive the reality around me right now. But I do want to have tests and waiting for them I make sure I have place holders.
My compromise is to set the tests to Inconclusive (Ignore in nUnit talk). I guess it will come back to bite me…
What I also do is to make sure I have a test to go with every method.
[TestMethod]
public void AddOrUpdateTest()
{
Assert.Inconclusive();
Elvis.Common.Meta.GetMethodName<BLF.Sample>(x => x.AddOrUpdate(null, null));
}
I used the code from
http://stackoverflow.com/questions/1524290/linq-is-it-possible-to-get-a-method-name-without-a-return-type-via-linq-expressio
but I could probably use CompulsoryCat just as well.
I belive that even adhering TDD this technique is good. There are so many times I don’t know what the classes and methods will look like before having done a simple implementation. To write exhaustive tests for a method that will be deleted is a waste. Better then to make sure the simple code runs and not forget to write the tests by having a yellow Inconclusive flag.