Inline Tests (pengyunie.github.io)
Some of you may not know, but I started my career as a software tester, so I’ve done my share of defect tracking and fixing. Although it was a while ago (well, over 20 years ago to be frank), I still remember a thing or two. I guess it is like riding a bike. One thing that I remember is that we did not really need more tests, but smarter testing.
This paper, nevertheless, proposes a new type of testing – inline testing – which is supposed to replace using printf(…) in code. Instead of printing values of variables for debugging purposes, we can use the new framework to create such small inline tests and execute them. The idea is simple and contributes to the maturity of our discipline.
By using inline tests, we can track the progress of our software development and its quality evolution. Since we can generate reports and use asserts, we could communicate our progress to quality management in a much better way.
I need to test this framework, especially that it works with Python, my new language of choice…
