However since I have been doing a lot of development for cloud platforms (Google App Engine for instance), I have realized that without tests you don't really have a sane way of debugging and verifying your code.
And since I always write a lot of code during my work (testing stuff out in python shell) I have realized how wasteful my previous approach was.
If I had written that code into a file and added a couple of assertions I would have a nice test suite.
However I still believe that on should not overdo tests from the get go. Write the tests for common cases, then add regression tests as bugs pop up here and there.
That gives the best ROI IMHO.
Edit: I have to confess that indeed I have read the TLDR; then the first paragraph and then I was already writing a comment here.
For the record I think that cargo cultists are going to be cargo culting no matter how we call this or that.
Comments
I had a very similar outlook.
However since I have been doing a lot of development for cloud platforms (Google App Engine for instance), I have realized that without tests you don't really have a sane way of debugging and verifying your code.
And since I always write a lot of code during my work (testing stuff out in python shell) I have realized how wasteful my previous approach was.
If I had written that code into a file and added a couple of assertions I would have a nice test suite.
However I still believe that on should not overdo tests from the get go. Write the tests for common cases, then add regression tests as bugs pop up here and there.
That gives the best ROI IMHO.
Edit: I have to confess that indeed I have read the TLDR; then the first paragraph and then I was already writing a comment here.
For the record I think that cargo cultists are going to be cargo culting no matter how we call this or that.
If you actually read the article, I think you'll find yourself on the same page as the author.