Testing ASP.NET Web Applications

2.1. Why Should a Developer Care about Testing?

This is a question that has been a popular topic in the development circles as of late: if I'm a developer, why should I care about testing? Isn't this why there are testers?

We think that every developer should care about all aspects of the software development lifecycle, from gathering initial requirements to maintaining the live running systems. As such, a developer needs to care about what happens when the system enters the testing phase because it's an important stage and needs to be as effective as possible.

Testing should also extend to how developers produce the code. As a software developer, you should always verify that the code you've produced matches what you expected it to do. This verification can be done manually or via automated tests. By verifying that the code meets your own assumptions, you can remove those simple, easy-to-solve bugs with very little effort before they enter QA. Testers can then focus on the important issues, such as does the software actually meet the customer's requirements, does it work effectively in production, and more importantly, are any other features broken? The result is improved productivity for the team, because testers are not as concerned with the basic functionality at the class and method level, instead of focusing on the larger picture. As a result, you should be able to fix problems while still maintaining focus on developing the particular block of code. This should result in ...