Peter Bell wrote in post #978204: [...] > I would say that Marnen's position is very consistent from what I see > from Kent Beck and others on the XP/TDD lists.
The XP crowd have been a major influence on my testing philosophy, even though I've never done XP as such. > It took me a while to get > used to the approach, and I think it's important to clarify that Marnen > isn't saying not to test complex private methods. Well, I guess I sort of *am* saying that, but only in the sense that you probably shouldn't *have* complex private methods that need their own tests -- that is, if your private methods are that complex, they should be made public and/or decomposed. > He's just saying that > if they are complex, maybe you've discovered another composed object's > public method. Or the same object's public method, or a method that is too long... > SRP and all that . . . I suppose. Basically, I think if you have a private method that is complex enough that wants to be tested in isolation, then that is a symptom of an underlying design problem: your methods are insufficiently accessible, or insufficiently atomic, or your code is otherwise insufficiently modular (say, by virtue of needing a new class introduced). Fix the underlying problem and the need for "so-big-it-needs-its-own-tests" private methods will go away. > > Best Wishes, > Peter Best, -- Marnen Laibow-Koser http://www.marnen.org [email protected] -- Posted via http://www.ruby-forum.com/. -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Ruby on Rails: Talk" group. To post to this group, send email to [email protected]. To unsubscribe from this group, send email to [email protected]. For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/rubyonrails-talk?hl=en.
