Effective Unit Testing

Chapter 9. Speeding up test execution

 

In this chapter

• Finding the root causes why a build is slow
• How to make test code run faster
• How to tweak an automated build to run faster

 

By now you’ve formulated an idea about why you write automated unit tests and what makes (or doesn’t make) for a good unit test. One of the properties of a good unit test is that it runs fast. Nevertheless, as you accumulate a bigger and bigger suite of tests, your feedback loop grows too. This chapter explains strategies for speeding up the execution of your test suite—the time it takes to run all of your unit tests—so that you’ll get that precious feedback in a timely manner.

First, we’ll get to the bottom of why we’re looking for faster ...