Lazy testing of rails applications

I have problem with applying a test driven development as It takes too long time and effort for the kind of applications that I develop as an application developer (working alone) However, after a while., also my applications become so complicated that changing one part has effect on other parts, i.e correcting one bug, often generates new bugs. I am therefore looking for some kind of lazy testing approach with a scaffolding technique for generating test code, based on running each action and method with same combination of valid in- and outdata. I think it would be possible to develop at least simple test in that way but I have not found any when googling for them. I very simple example would be to generate tests of the six generic actions in each controllers according to e.g this template

test ``"should get index" do

``get ``:index

``assert_response ``:success

``assert_not_nil assigns(``:posts``)

`end Although this is a very simple test it would be better than nothing. One could also try to analyse a log file to find the valid in and out data of each action and method used

Do anyone know of other attempts to do what I described here? Do you think it is possible to develop generators that accomplish this kind of lazy testing ? Would it be worthwhile do make such testings ?

`

I have problem with applying a test driven development as It takes too long time and effort for the kind of applications that I develop as an application developer (working alone) However, after a while., also my applications become so complicated that changing one part has effect on other parts, i.e correcting one bug, often generates new bugs. I am therefore looking for some kind of lazy testing approach with a scaffolding technique for generating test code, based on running each action and method with same combination of valid in- and outdata. I think it would be possible to develop at least simple test in that way but I have not found any when googling for them. I very simple example would be to generate tests of the six generic actions in each controllers according to e.g this template test ``"should get index" do

``get ``:index

``assert_response ``:success

``assert_not_nil assigns(``:posts``)

end

If you use the scaffold generators then you will get those tests generated for you. However a test like that really doesn’t go very far at all into helping with the sorts of more complicated interactions that you are describing. For me this is about at the same level as “it compiles” might be in a language like java or c++

`Although this is a very simple test it would be better than nothing. One could also try to analyse a log file to find the valid in and out data of each action and method used

Do anyone know of other attempts to do what I described here? Do you think it is possible to develop generators that accomplish this kind of lazy testing ? Would it be worthwhile do make such testings ?

`

Test code is to me as important as application code - I don’t think you can write good ‘lazy’ tests any more than you can write a lazy application

Fred

I have problem with applying a test driven development as It takes too long time and effort for the kind of applications that I develop as an application developer (working alone)

So it takes longer to do the first iteration of a simple site using TDD. Very likely true.

However, after a while., also my applications become so complicated that changing one part has effect on other parts, i.e correcting one bug, often generates new bugs.

And in the long run you realise that actually it would have been better to invest the additional effort from the start. Also true. So the moral is, for the next project, do the tests from the beginning.

I am therefore looking for some kind of lazy testing approach with a scaffolding technique for generating test code, based on running each action and method with same combination of valid in- and outdata. I think it would be possible to develop at least simple test in that way but I have not found any when googling for them. I very simple example would be to generate tests of the six generic actions in each controllers according to e.g this template test "should get index" do   get :index   assert_response :success   assert_not_nil assigns(:posts) end Although this is a very simple test it would be better than nothing. One could also try to analyse a log file to find the valid in and out data of each action and method used

As Fred has pointed out you can get basic tests generated by the scaffolding but whether they are much use is debatable.

Colin