| Replying here to your last post here because HN won't let me reply to it (maybe too nested?). You say nobody is arguing against contracts. > So you'd prefer your contracts to blow up your bugs in your clients' faces, rather than catch bugs yourself prior to releasing the code to them?! That's you arguing against contracts. Contracts need to blow up when users use the software (including you and your testers before you ship). You should ship if you find no contracts blowing up. But you need to let them blow up in user faces too. They provide valuable information AFTER SHIPPING. Otherwise they lose a lot of their value. Saying contracts shouldn't run in shipped code misses the whole point about what contracts are. > That... is literally what unit tests do. Test the software before you give it to users. No, unit tests test a portion of the software before shipping. My argument is they aren't worth the cost and provide little value. Most of the value comes from SYSTEM tests, integration tests, exploratory testing, fuzz testing, etc. Unit tests are the weakest form of testing. Here is a great argument against them called Why Most Unit Testing is Waste by Coplien. It's a dense argument which I agree with. https://wikileaks.org/ciav7p1/cms/files/Why-Most-Unit-Testin... |
> That's you arguing against contracts.
No. Notice what I wrote earlier? Where I very specifically said "contracts are awesome but not substitutes for unit tests"?
That's exactly the same thing I was saying here. I was arguing against relying on contracts to catch the bugs unit tests would've caught. Nobody was ever telling you to avoid contracts anywhere. Like I said, they're awesome, and both are valuable. I'm just saying they don't substitute for your unit tests. Just like how screwdrivers don't substitute for hammers, as awesome as both are.
> Saying contracts shouldn't run in shipped code misses the whole point about what contracts are.
I never said that, you're putting words in my mouth.
> No, unit tests test a portion of the software before shipping. My argument is they aren't worth the cost and provide little value. [...]
I just gave you a detailed, point-by-point explanation of what you've been missing in the other thread with your own purported counterexamples: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=41287473
Repeating your stance doesn't make it more correct.