On Writing Tests
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Frequently I see developers writing unit tests using a lot of metaprogramming patterns, for example packaging up shared functionality across multiple tests into it’s own helper utility function. However I personally believe this pattern actively contributes to more difficult to maintain test suites.
I think this trend partially gains momentum because developers tend to follow the DRY programming principle, so whenever they see the same code used in two places they immediately reach for an abstraction that can be used in both places.
Eventually these abstractions grow to become unmaintainable, it usually starts with adding one more unit test that needs to change the argument of a function or a prop on a component, which seems easy enough to add it as an argument to the abstraction. This soon snowballs as more and more edge cases need to be added to the abstraction. Finally, a different engineer is looking at a failing test 2 years from now and scratching their head on what is happening within the unit test, they need to jump through complex abstractions layered on the unit under test until they’re forced to give up and disable the test.
Instead, I recommend that developers usually keep tests as isolated as possible,
what you do in one test shouldn’t impact your other tests! This mindset can be
really difficult to feel comfortable with, but I’ve found it starts to come
naturally over time. Plus it builds on two crucial tools to most engineers
toolbox: copy and paste 😂 !
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