Testing data repositories with embedded databases

Testing against real databases has always been expensive in terms of both time and resources. That’s because it has traditionally required launching our application, grabbing a handwritten script of sorts, and clicking through various pages of the application to ensure it works.

There are companies with teams of test engineers whose sole job is to write these test documents, update them as changes are rolled out, and run them against applications in carved-out test labs.

Imagine waiting a week for your new feature to get checked out by this regimen.

Automated testing brought a new wave of empowerment to developers. They can capture test cases describing the scenario they were aiming for. Yet developers still ran into the issue of talking to a real database (because let’s face it – tests aren’t real unless you’re talking to a physical database) until people started developing databases that...