Testing Made Simple

Tony Kay
NAVIS

Design and testing of software systems is a challenging task we’re continually trying to improve through languages, techniques, secret sauce, and tribal custom. Various communities have espoused TDD, BDD, property-based testing, clojure.spec, better design through patterns, immutability, referential transparency, and admonitions to “keep it simple”. Most developers have a vague notion that they “should” be testing more, but too few think about a coherent approach and instead end up with a scattered bunch of poorly organized and largely difficult-to-understand tests that serve little purpose other than to check off a box: Wrote Some Tests. In this talk I’ll cover a distilled set of rules/tools that work well for Clojure(script) and have proven to be effective at delivering a more coherent and useful result. I’ll also show you how these can form a symbiotic relationship where your design enables simpler testing, and the weaknesses of your design are illuminated by your experience with your tests.

Tony Kay is a software craftsman with nearly 30 years of experience. He has published research on concurrent programming, spent a number of years teaching software development, and is passionate about software craftsmanship. He currently works in a full-stack Clojure/Clojurescript environment as a technical lead, is the lead architect and developer of the Untangled Web Framework, is a contributor to Om Next, and can often be found making inappropriate jokes in the corner of the breakroom.