Testing Frameworks

Tenured professionals know that testing must be automated. Someone explained this to them years ago or they learned it the hard way. This practice isn’t as obvious to inexperienced programmers; it seems like unnecessary, extra work that doesn’t bring much value. It’s understandable: when someone is just starting to write code, they have yet to create really complex solutions and work on large code bases. Most likely, they are the sole developer of their pet project. These early projects rarely take more than a few months to complete, so there’s little chance to see how code deteriorates over a longer period.

All these factors contribute to the belief that writing tests is a waste of time and effort. The programming novice may tell themselves that they actually do test their code each time they go through the build-and-run routine. After all, they have manually confirmed that their code works and does what’s expected. So, it...