Learning What to Test, and Why

Sebastopol, CA, September 13, 2007—Pragmatic programmers use feedback to drive their development and personal processes. The most valuable feedback you can get while coding comes from unit testing. Now in it's second edition, Pragmatic Unit Testing in C# with NUnit, 2nd Ed. (Pragmatic Bookshelf, $29.95) will show you how to do software unit testing, of course, but more importantly will show you what to test.

New for the Second Edition:

• Updated for NUnit 2.4 (C#, .NET 2.0, Visual Studio 2005, and Mono)
• More NUnit assert methods
• New String and Collection assertion support
• Better support for multiple-platform development (Mono and .NET)
• Higher-level setup and teardown fixtures
• ...and more!

Without good tests in place, coding can become a frustrating game of "whack-a-mole." That's the carnival game where the player strikes at a mechanical mole; it retreats and another mole pops up on the opposite side of the field. The moles pop up and down so fast that you end up flailing your mallet helplessly as the moles continue to pop up where you least expect them. You need automated testing and regression testing to keep the moles from popping up.

You don't test a bridge by driving a single car over it right down the middle lane on a clear, calm day. Yet many programmers approach testing that same way—one pass right down the middle and they call it "tested." Pragmatic programmers can do better than that!

With this book, you will:

• Write better code, faster
• Discover the best hiding places where C# bugs breed
• Learn how to think of all the things that could go wrong
• Test pieces of code without using the whole .NET project
• Use NUnit to simplify your C# test code
• Test effectively with the whole team

Real software unit testing will make your life easier. It will make your software design and architecture better and drastically reduce the amount of time you spend debugging you .NET code.

For a review copy or more information please email pragprogpr@oreilly.com. Please include your delivery address and contact information.

Andy Hunt and Dave Thomas have more than 50 years combined experience, developing software for clients around the world. For the last 10 years they've been working together as The Pragmatic Programmers, helping clients write software and improve their development processes. They are authors of the best-selling The Pragmatic Programmer, and have written several other books. They speak at conferences globally, and are editors of IEEE Software's "Construction" column.

Additional Resources:
For more information about the book, including table of contents, index, author bios, and cover graphic, see: http://www.oreilly/catalog/0977616673 0977616673 -->