97 Things Every Programmer Should Know

Chapter 82. Test While You Sleep (and over Weekends)

Rajith Attapattu

RELAX. I am not referring to offshore development centers, overtime on weekends, or working the night shift. Rather, I want to draw your attention to how much computing power we have at our disposal. Specifically, how much we are not harnessing to make our lives as programmers a little easier. Are you constantly finding it difficult to get enough computing power during the work day? If so, what are your test servers doing outside of normal work hours? More often than not, the test servers are idling overnight and over the weekend. You can use this to your advantage.

• Have you been guilty of committing a change without running all the tests? One of the main reasons programmers don’t run test suites before committing code is because of the length of time they may take. When deadlines are looming and push comes to shove, humans naturally start cutting corners. One way to address this is to break down your large test suite into two or more profiles. A smaller, mandatory test profile that is quick to run will help to ensure that tests are run before each commit. All of the test profiles (including the mandatory profile—just to be sure) can be automated to run overnight, ready to report their results in the morning.

• Have you had enough opportunity to test the stability of your product? Longer-running tests are vital ...