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Delete tests

(andre.arko.net)
125 points mooreds | 1 comments | 27 Aug 25 11:18 UTC | HN request time: 0s | source
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recursivedoubts ◴[30 Aug 25 02:27 UTC] No.45071410[source]▶
One of the most important things you can do is move your tests up the abstraction layers and away from unit tests. For lack of a better term, to move to integration tests. End-to-end tests are often too far from the system to easily understand what's wrong when they break, and can overwhelm a development org. Integration tests (or whatever you want to call them) are often the sweet spot: not tied to a particular implementation, able to survive fairly significant system changes, but also easy enough to debug when they break.

https://grugbrain.dev/#grug-on-testing

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BinaryIgor ◴[30 Aug 25 05:34 UTC] No.45072123[source]▶
Was exactly about to point that out - if you mostly have integration (aka in-between tests) tests, you rarely need to refactor your tests. It's about testing mostly at the right abstraction level: https://binaryigor.com/unit-integration-e2e-contract-x-tests...
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1. RaftPeople ◴[30 Aug 25 20:09 UTC] No.45077620[source]▶
Agree.

I don't think people realize the stats based on studies:

Unit testing catches about 30% of bugs

Visual code inspection catches about 70%

End to end testing also catches about 70%

All are important, but emphasis should be on the more effective methods.

> We’ve had decades of thought leadership around testing

I really disagree that this is the case that the industry has had thought leadership. I think we've had people pushing automated unit testing very hard when end to end is more effective. I don't think the position was based on facts but more of a few people's opinion.