Code Craft

Design for Test

The quality of unit test you can write is determined largely by the quality of the interface you have to test. Testing is easier when your code is written thoughtfully and specifically designed to accommodate inspection and verification. You achieve this by crafting clear APIs, reducing reliance on other bits of code, and breaking any hard-coded links to other components. This way, it’s easy to place a component into its test environment and stimulate it. If, instead, it’s grafted intimately into other sections of code, you have to drag all of that code into the test environment and arrange for it to interact with your unit appropriately. This is not always easy, and often impossible, limiting your scope for possible tests.

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