Test Driven Development

Test Driven Development (TDD) is a special methodology in which tests are used to design and develop a software product. The whole process is a structured practice that is divided into three main cycles: Red, Green and Refactor.

In the first cycle, a unit test is written that checks the functionality, in the second, the required amount of code for the test to pass, in the third, repetitions are eliminated, the code is made “clean”. After completion, all described steps are repeated again.

The entire array of tests that are carried out during the development process form the test Pyramid. Regardless of the specification of applications, their tasks and functions, there are several types of checks that they pass.

Functional testing

This step allows you to ensure that all product functionality is working correctly. The testing process often uses black and white box testing strategies (no access / with access to the system code). The following are subject to mandatory assessment:

• system performance at high loads;
• the presence of system errors;
• compliance of the product with the requirements specified in the project specification;
• interaction between different components of the system;
• interface functionality.

Unit testing

Inspection of specific parts of a product, such as certain functions, systems or methods. The goal of testing is to verify that each unit of code is working correctly.

Cyclic testing

Instead of one cycle, test modules are continuously repeated until they are completed. The purpose of this check is to confirm the stability of the program. Cyclic testing provides insight into the performance of a product over a long period of time.

Also, the methodology can be applied at various levels:

• unit testing;
• integration testing;
• acceptance testing.

TDD simplifies the implementation of a software product, since it eliminates redundancy: if a certain component passes testing, then it is considered ready. Thanks to the coverage of all program features by tests, developers can safely make changes to the code – if a problem occurs in the work, the results of automated testing will be reported.

One of the main differences of the TDD approach is the fewer problems and mistakes that a specialist faces. Accordingly, this advantage allows you to save time required to fix possible bugs.

In addition, developers can be confident in the reliability of the software solution. Tests help you understand if things are going right after refactoring or adding a new feature.

To improve the efficiency of the methodology and continuous unit testing, many specialists use additional tools. For example, the Eclipse framework with native JUnit support, the MoreUnit and Infinitest pagins, which are used to manage unit tests (perform automatic checking when changes are made), and others.

The methodology has a number of other important advantages:

• helps to improve the architecture of the system;
• facilitates maintenance and scaling of the project in the future;
• easily detects errors in the early stages of the development process;
• allows you to design stable and reliable applications;
• if all the rules are followed, test-driven development helps to get “clean”, structured code;
• the quality of the product created with TDD is significantly higher than with other strategies.

Another feature of the methodology concerns the speed of product development – when the team has sufficient experience in TDD, the work is done much faster. This is due to several factors: unnecessary code is not written, the design is practically not rewritten, and it also takes less time to find and fix problems.

AVADA MEDIA offers services for the development and testing of software products for business. In our work, we use an integrated approach and implement tasks of any complexity.

Test Driven Development is one of the most useful yet challenging engineering practices to implement.

Our specialists have extensive experience in testing, therefore they actively use TDD to create high-quality and convenient applications that meet the client’s requirements and arouse the interest of the target audience.

We provide convenient products for solving business problems and effective communication with the consumer, strictly adhere to deadlines and provide full project support.