Duncan Pierce duncanpierce.org

Today I discovered my current clients (who are using Fit to write acceptance tests) are implementing the Fit test support as the last task before completing the story. This is backwards. There are several good reasons why getting the acceptance test(s) running first is better.

Stories should be test-driven

When using Hibernate, it’s useful to include an integration test that builds an object model, saves it and retrieves it from the database. What frequently causes problems when using Hibernate (or object-relational mappings in general) is that 3 different things must be kept in sync:

1. an object model;
2. a database schema;

A patchy test suite is a common occurrence on projects. The application is often only as good as its weakest area (though it may be weak in an area that is seldom used). The weakest area is likely to be worst tested.