[jstimpfle]

I would actually say these all make good "objects", i.e. isolated pieces. On the other hand, no runtime polymorphism is needed. To avoid OOP at a syntactic level, what do you think of the following?

- For tests at a smaller level, decompose the application such that most parts are easily testable in isolation (without external "hard" dependencies).

- For mid-sized tests with external dependencies but mostly unidirectional dataflow, setup a global virtual table with all the mock methods (and instances) that are needed. Alternatively, traditional linking methods.

- For larger "integration" tests there is no substitute to testing the real thing. At some scale and level of interactivity with the database, you just have to talk to the true filesystem, the true database etc. You can still setup a test instance for most cases where there is no interaction with external services.