Write Your Tests Today or Suffer Tomorrow

When we make production apps, many a times we don’t write test cases. Many developers prefer manually testing the software rather than writing a test case.

But why? Is it because of the steep learning curve involved in writing automation tests? Is it because of strict deadlines to meet? Is it due to not having enough time? Or is it just because writing tests are boring?

Maybe because,

“ When I joined the company the product was already developed by someone, it was difficult to decide how should I start — by focusing on understanding the previous code or by working on new enhancements? Should I work towards meeting the client deadlines or spend my time bug fixes? Oh wait, I read that I writing tests is equally important, but do I really have time to dedicate to that?”

-Very common scenario

“ Let’s skip writing test for now, I will add them sometime later in future. I am going to focus on meeting my deadlines”

After few months….

“OMG what is this bug, why’s everything crashing suddenly…this is bad, really bad; my users are going to be so frustrated with it. I wish I had written tests earlier on to ensure the quality”

-Life of a normal developer

“No, I want confidence in my code, I will work on my deadlines and write few tests now and slowly add more in parallel to my development workflow, no matter how hard I have to work for it! ”

After few months….

“I am so happy seeing the amazing reviews from the users and seeing my app listed among on the top charts. The hard work of writing tests really paid off.”

-Life of a seasoned developer

Yes, writing tests has such a great impact on your app, and while adding them doesn’t mean your app won’t crash at all in production, the frequency will reduce to a great extent. However. the benefits don’t stop there — it makes your code modular, it makes regression easier, and reduces time to test everything as you just have to run the tests against the new code and voila! The affected areas will reveal themselves.

So decide today what you want- your app to be on the top and give users the best experience, or to get the work done on time, irrespective of its quality.

Ending this with few thoughts and links which inspired me towards it.

Link : http://www.donnfelker.com/android-from-the-trenches/