Chapter 7. The pillars of good tests

This chapter covers

  • Writing trustworthy tests
  • Writing maintainable tests
  • Writing readable tests
  • Exploring naming conventions for unit tests

No matter how you organize your tests, or how many you have, they’re worth very little if you can’t trust them, maintain them, or read them. The tests that you write should have three properties that together make them good:

  • Trustworthiness— Developers will want to run trustworthy tests, and they’ll accept the test results with confidence. Trustworthy tests don’t have bugs, and they test the right things.
  • Maintainability— Nonmaintainable tests are nightmares because they can ruin project schedules, or you risk losing the tests when the project is put on a more aggressive ...

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