"People writing Rails apps without tests are idiots."

http://kurt.karmalab.org/articles/2008/02/07/rails-app-without-tests-guaranteed-fail

by pius • 18 years ago

10 15 18 years ago

kurt.karmalab.org

awt• 18 years ago

I know of rails app that was sold last year for a decent price that was untested. Are the people who wrote it idiots?

nostrademons3• 18 years ago

Probably yes, but they're lucky idiots. It's the buyer's problem now...

airhadoken• 18 years ago

They're lesser idiots than the people who bought it.

menloparkbum• 18 years ago

losers like this are why I quit using rails. well, that and the whole ungodly slowness thing.

rails doesn't provide any facility for testing the stuff that is actually hard to test - the frontend javascript/flash/ui layer. it makes it easy to test stuff that shouldn't need testing.

pius• 18 years ago

losers like this are why I quit using rails.

Yeah, this blog post was definitely inflammatory . . .

well, that and the whole ungodly slowness thing.

That's pure FUD -- it's nowhere near as slow as you imply.

rails doesn't provide any facility for testing the stuff that is actually hard to test - the frontend javascript/flash/ui layer.

That's not true. Every popular testing library for Rails (stock or third-party) has view testing. I noticed you threw in Flash. Do you really expect your web application framework to test your Flash files? What would that look like?

it makes it easy to test stuff that shouldn't need testing.

Your domain modeling, controllers, and all-around application logic shouldn't need testing?

fendale• 18 years ago

Software that doesn't need testing - that doesn't exist I am afraid.

The UI is a different ball game (and as browsers evolve it will continuously change), and there are tools out there to solve it in some way or another. With the Rails tests, at least you have confidence that your backend is correct which is probably 80% of the battle.

Also, the value of automated tests in general is to give you confidence that the small change you just made didn't break something else!

nostrademons3• 18 years ago

I wouldn't test a pure CRUDscreen put-data-on-the-screen app. How would it break? The app is basically a specification of the data you want moved from database to the web page.

And with the apps I've worked on, about 80% of the battle was the UI. The backend was usually pretty simple data storage. That could be because my career has been largely UI-centric, but there are certainly apps out there where the UI code is more complex than the computation itself.

nostrademons3• 18 years ago

That's what JSUnit/AsUnit/Selenium is for...

kschrader2• 18 years ago

We test our front end using Selenium across multiple browsers every time we do a build.

I guess we'll just have to disagree on whether or not there's software that doesn't "need testing"

mberning• 18 years ago

Does everybody that ever worked for thoughtworks automatically become a self important blog jockey?

kschrader2• 18 years ago

Yes, apparently. What's wrong with writing a blog again?

thomasswift• 18 years ago

i guess i know a shitload of idiots...

factor• 18 years ago

No shit, Sherlock.

chaostheory• 18 years ago

He probably could have written it better so it wouldn't have been inflamatory, but this has been done for years now... this probably applies for all apps beyond just Rails...

ericwaller• 18 years ago

Unit testing isn't a bad idea, but it's not an incredibly prolific one either. Maybe I haven't gotten the proper intro to testing, but what I've seen (mainly in rails blog articles) is a joke. If I'm going to test a function I want to test the entire domain of inputs -- assertEquals(square(2) , 4) is totally useless.

I'd be happy to have someone show me an example of a useful rails-related test.

"People writing Rails apps without tests are idiots."

Related Stories