"Code is read much more often than it is written." - Guido van Rossum
This is true for both production code and test code.
When you are trying to understand why a test is failing, you'll be very grateful to the test author if they've taken the care to make it readable.
David Seddon came up with 6 principles to help us write more readable tests.
We discuss these, as well as more benefits of readable tests.
David's 6 Principles of Readable Tests:
- Profit from the work of others
- Put naming to work
- Show only what matters
- Don’t repeat yourself
- Arrange, act, assert
- Aim high
Special Guest: David Seddon.
Links:
- How to write readable tests (presentation) · David Seddon
- How to write readable tests (slides)
- pytest
- WebTest
- factory_boy
- django-webtest