The Art of Unit Testing: With Examples in .NET

by Roy Osherove

Book Overview

Summary The Art of Unit Testing, Second Edition guides you step by step from writing your first simple tests to developing robust test sets that are maintainable, readable, and trustworthy. You'll... This description may be from another edition of this product.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 1933988274
• ISBN13: 9781933988276
• Release Date: July 2009
• Publisher: Manning Publications
• Length: 296 Pages
• Weight: 1.25 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.7" x 7.4" x 9.4"

Customer Reviews

Review by Philippe Vialatte

It is no longer needed to discuss the need for unit tests. Indeed, this technique becomes increasingly widespread in the computer world, whatever the language, and, when those tests are well crafted, they can significantly improve the quality of software, while facilitating the maintenance of the product. Unit tests can detect any new bug introduced in the product, and can therefore avoid regressions in the code. The question that often remains unresolved is how to produce "good" unit tests. The literature contains a large number of books discussing methods (Agile, XP, Scrum), but there was no (in any case, for. NET) book explaining clearly how to produce some quality unit tests. That is the goal of The Art Of Unit Testing . The book begins with an introduction to NUnit, and a set of definitions. It then moves quickly enough to a bit of practice with a first unit test. The next section develops the concept of mock and stubs, and discusses in depth the Rhino Mocks framework. This part furthermore presents a set of good practices related to the use of this Framework, or any other isolation framework. After discussing the building blocks of unit tests, the third part presents a set of good practice for the tests themselves, to avoid (among other issues) that the maintenance cost of the tests exceeds the advantage gained by their existence. The last part of the book is looking at a level above, and presents the different points to keep in mind when introducing unit tests in an organization and especially in an existing project, which can represent a large proportion of cases when introducing unit testing in a team or project. My biggest apprehension with this book was that, with Roy Osherove working for TypeMock, he would speak mostly of the commercial tools develpped by TypeMock (Isolator, Ivonna and co.). In fact, these tools are only marginally mentioned in this book, which focuses on 'standards' such as NUnit and Rhino Mocks. All in all, this book is probably the best introduction to unit tests I've ever read, and should, in my opinion, be required reading for any team or person decided to start unit tests. In any case, personally, this is the book that I would have loved to have two years ago, when I started writing tests. That said, this book requires some development experience with the .NET framework to appreciate it properly, therefore I recommend it to people having at least 2 or 3 projects behind them.

This book is close to perfect

As a rule, I do not leave reviews - too lazy for that. But for this book I'll make an exception. Here is why I liked it: - Biggest problem with unit testing is that if used incorrectly, it will ruin your project. This book shows you the way around problems you cannot see without experiencing them firsts - saves you A LOT of time. - Right size, concentrated material, can be finished in 2-3 days. - Every chapter matters. The Art of Unit Testing is the best fit for developers who had some hands-on experience in unit testing but wasn't very successful with it.

Succinct, Pragmatic and Actionable

The Art of Unit Testing: with Examples in .NET In short, if you want a tactical book on unit testing that distills the passion and love of an expert practitioner into a very readable yet reference-friendly text on unit testing, this is it. If you are new to unit testing or TDD, this book will demystify the practices, tools and techniques that would otherwise take years and lots of frustration to get right. If you are an experienced practitioner of unit testing and TDD, and are already practicing SOLID, TOOD, and BDD not just as a flavor of the week but as a way of life, this book will provide unambiguous insight into different approaches that will help you refine your existing techniques or at a minimum, validate your approach which is always valuable to any developer who has an opportunity to review his/her techniques with a seasoned master. This book will afford you that opportunity. While the book cites excellent references for TDD and design patterns, if there is one thing that I thought was missing was a narrative- even if by way of an appendix- that ties all of the techniques covered together in an example of building the example Logger component using TDD. I understand that this book is not about TDD, but at the same time, that's like a book on scuba equipment that teaches you precisely how to pressurize your CO2 tank, keep your mask from fogging up and care and maintenance of your scuba suit not being about scuba diving. That said, knowing Roy, it must have been painful to resist a detailed examination on TDD, but, for this book to be effective, it had to be relatively short, to the point and most of all pragmatic for it to succeed at filling the void on the topic of unit testing techniques and practices. To that end, Roy hits the mark very elegantly without being pretentious, catering to those who test first, test last or don't (yet) test at all. While I would love for everyone to pick this book up and start doing TDD today, even if you aren't yet convinced on TDD, applying these techniques to writing code that is testable, and learning how to test the right things will be an instant asset to your product, your team and your organization.

Best book on Unit Testing - Ever

This book is not an evolutionary book to other unit testing books out there; it's revolutionary. First of all it's not a thinly disguised book trying to sell you on TDD (as some unit testing books that I've read are), but rather it's a book that truly lives up to it's title - the art of unit testing. Secondly, the discussions and examples in the book take real world considerations in mind. These are not simple contrite 'Hello World' tests, or 'perfect world' sets of code. It discuss' writing tests on both green and brown field applications. A third aspect that is truly helpful is that there is an entire section for dealing with implementing unit testing in an organization and the politics you might face while doing so. Because the book isn't biased towards a particular software discipline, tool, or language, but on the 'art' of unit testing, these are tips and tricks you can take with you anywhere. If you found books like 'The Pragmatic Programmer' or 'The Inmates are Running the Asylum' getting you revved up to write better software, then this book will drive you to a whole new level of unit testing. I've been doing unit testing for several years now, but it wasn't until after I read this book, that it no longer was a chore that I checked off my 'TODO' list.

Approachable Yet Thorough

This book covers unit testing in .NET from a pragmatic, yet thourough and passionate, perspective. In brief, it covers many important dimensions of unit testing from simple "hello world" tests over the use of Stubs and Mocks to how you write maintainable test code. It also covers organizational topics such as how you introduce unit testing in an organization and how to do code reviews of tests. Although unit testing has become somewhat synonymous with Agile practices, such as Test-Driven Development (TDD), the book never assumes that you will be using TDD. It is valuable wether you write your tests before or after your code. Roy Osherove clearly has a lot of experience with unit testing, and he willingly shares so we can learn from his mistakes and successes. As a long-term practitioner of TDD myself, I can vouch for most of the advice imparted by this book: It is based on established patterns and best practices that the unit testing community have arrived at through years of experimentation. Being the anal-retentive perfectionist that I am, I would have liked to see the book adopt the Pattern Language of xUnit Test Patterns: Refactoring Test Code (Addison-Wesley Signature Series), but at least the guidance of those two books are very much in harmony, even if the terminology differs. In summary, you can say that this book is a very readable and useful introduction to unit testing. If you are a beginner to intermediate unit test developer, you should definitely read this book - and then, as you become more advanced, you should still read xUnit Test Patterns :)