Recommended Books on Unit Testing?

[Jacobson-ni]

I've heard a few different people mention "The Art of Unit Testing" but I don't currently know C# and I don't see it being used in the projects I tend to work on. I've also been looking at "Test-Driven Development: By Example" but haven't talked to anyone who has read that one.

Any recommendations are appreciated.

[Daklu]

I picked up xUnit Test Patterns many years ago and think it's very good if you're using JKI's VI Tester (which is based on the xUnit family.)  It's probably somewhat less useful if you're using NI's Unit Test Framework.

The first 14 chapters (~185 pages) are mainly a higher level discourse on unit testing.  To be honest, I found this part of the book the most useful.

The next 3 chapeters (~90 pages) cover test smells.

The remaining 2/3 of the book explains the patterns, of which there are about 60.

The examples are a mix of Ruby, C#, and Java.  You don't need to be able to code in those languages to figure out what is happening, but you probably do need to have some familiarity with text languages.  I suggest browsing through the sample pages on Amazon and reviewing the code.

[Taggart]

I second Dave's recommendation. I read the xUnit Test Patterns a while ago. It is large and very thorough but lot's of good information. I remember the examples being very easy to follow.

I am currently reading the Art of Unit Testing 2nd edition (there is now a 3rd edition). I am finding the C# examples hard to follow. Without having read the XUnit Test Patterns, I would probably be completely lost.

Another resource is LabVIEW Graphical Programming (5th edition). It has a chapter on Unit Testing. It has a lot of examples in LabVIEW using the various frameworks. Since it is only one chapter, the theory is not as deep, but it does cover the basics really well and the examples are all in LabVIEW so they are very easy to follow.

I have a bunch of unit testing articles on my blog that you might find useful.

https://automatedenver.com/sw-engineering/unit-testing/

James Mac (Wiresmith) and Fab (Delacor) have also put some good content as well. I don't have a link but just google it.

[Bob_Schor]

---

@Taggart wrote:

Another resource is LabVIEW Graphical Programming (5th edition). It has a chapter on Unit Testing. It has a lot of examples in LabVIEW using the various frameworks. Since it is only one chapter, the theory is not as deep, but it does cover the basics really well and the examples are all in LabVIEW so they are very easy to follow.

---

LabVIEW Graphical Programming (5th Edition), also sometimes called LGP5E, is a recently-released book by Richard Jennings and Fabiola de la Cueva (whom, I hope, you all know and admire).  I can speak as a Unit Testing Novice -- I learned quite a bit from this Chapter (it's easier to make progress when starting out as Rank Amateur than as Experienced Expert).

Bob Schor