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by Jtsummers 414 days ago
> What was interesting to me about this was actively approaching the test as a way of debugging, designing it to give you useful information and using the test in conjunction with debugger

I'm curious, if you're using TDD weren't you already doing this? A test that doesn't give you useful information is not a useful test.
1 comments
hyperpape 414 days ago
I think the distinction is that if you write a test that reproduces the bug, that's a binary signal and doesn't by itself tell you anything about why the bug is happening.

In contrast, if you write tests that rule out particular causes of a bug you're incrementally narrowing down the potential causes of the bug. So each test gives you information that helps you solve the bug, without directly stepping through the code.

Unfortunately, I don't think the post is a great primer on the subject.

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Jtsummers 414 days ago
> Unfortunately, I don't think the post is a great primer on the subject.

It isn't, nor is it intended to be. It's an advert:

>> While mastering unit tests as debugging tools takes practice, AI-powered solutions like Qodo can significantly accelerate this journey. Qodo’s contextual understanding of your Java codebase helps it automatically generate tests that target potential logic vulnerabilities.

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