Book Image

Agile Technical Practices Distilled

By : Pedro M. Santos, Marco Consolaro, Alessandro Di Gioia
Book Image

Agile Technical Practices Distilled

By: Pedro M. Santos, Marco Consolaro, Alessandro Di Gioia

Overview of this book

The number of popular technical practices has grown exponentially in the last few years. Learning the common fundamental software development practices can help you become a better programmer. This book uses the term Agile as a wide umbrella and covers Agile principles and practices, as well as most methodologies associated with it. You’ll begin by discovering how driver-navigator, chess clock, and other techniques used in the pair programming approach introduce discipline while writing code. You’ll then learn to safely change the design of your code using refactoring. While learning these techniques, you’ll also explore various best practices to write efficient tests. The concluding chapters of the book delve deep into the SOLID principles - the five design principles that you can use to make your software more understandable, flexible and maintainable. By the end of the book, you will have discovered new ideas for improving your software design skills, the relationship within your team, and the way your business works.
Table of Contents (31 chapters)
Free Chapter
1
Section 1
7
Section 2
13
Section 3
19
Section 4
25
Chapter 21
28
License: CyberDojo

Great Habits

There is a set of good habits you should aim to internalize. In the following lessons, we will add more to this list.

Considerations when Writing a New Test

  • Tests should test one thing only.

Imagine you have 1,000 tests and a failing test. Can you spot a single failing behavior? This does not mean you should write a single assertion. It is fine to have multiple assertions as long as they are testing the same behavior.

  • Create more specific tests to drive a more generic solution (triangulate) by adding new tests that force your code to pivot.
  • Give your tests meaningful names (behavior/goal-oriented names) expressing your business domain.

– Avoid technical names for tests. For example: myMethodNameReturnsSomething.

– Avoid leaking implementation details in test names: For example: myTestReturnsFalse or CommandPatternTest.

– Avoid writing technical tests; you should test behaviors, not the technicality of components...