Clean Code: A Handbook of Agile Software Craftsmanship

15JUnit Internals

JUnit is one of the most famous of all Java frameworks. As frameworks go, it is simple in conception, precise in definition, and elegant in implementation. But what does the code look like? In this chapter we’ll critique an example drawn from the JUnit framework.

The JUnit Framework

JUnit has had many authors, but it began with Kent Beck and Eric Gamma together on a plane to Atlanta. Kent wanted to learn Java, and Eric wanted to learn about Kent’s Smalltalk testing framework. “What could be more natural to a couple of geeks in cramped quarters than to pull out our laptops and start coding?”¹ After three hours of high-altitude ...