I often encounter software projects that have absolutely no automated tests. This is rarely because the development team feels that authoring tests is a waste of their time. It’s most often the case that the team would love to have automated tests. If you feel like your project or team is stuck when it comes to automated testing, then I’d like to provide some guidance and specific techniques for how to get started.
Over the years, I've heard a lot of different attitudes regarding code that’s going to be thrown away. Let me be clear here. I’m not talking about code that we think might get thrown away. I’m talking about code that we know will get thrown away.
Integration tests? Unit tests? Acceptance tests? How do all these tests work together and what should you focus on first? We like to think of testing as a pyramid. The goal is to build an entire pyramid and keep it growing at scale.