Tuesday, September 27, 2016

Reasons Why IBM I Series Unit Testing Is A Good Testing Method

By Daniel Stone


A software by nature is expected to have a lot of bugs at its initial release. It becomes more difficult to track bugs especially when there is no method in the work flow and testing process. Readability, efficiency and security are parameters to keep in mind and while coding, these can be easily compromised due to the scale of the project.

Linux and Microsoft 2000 are some of the Operating systems that work with the IBM AS/400. Also known as the I series, this system can compile programming languages such as C, assembly, C++, Perl and so on. This makes IBM I series unit testing an efficient method the test IBM applications.

This method is essentially writing a code to exercise each functional fragment of the whole software, or in this case a module or a class from what is being developed. So when the module is being written, the unit test is also written with it. It is vital to add the tests during version control. Firstly it serves as a form of documentation, second this allows other developers to run and test the local features for themselves.

With this type of test the bugs in the code are discovered even before the function is added into the repository and on to the clients and testers. As a type of TDD or Test Driven Development, developers constantly check for the bugs during the process of making the whole system. Even with the isolation of one fragment from another during the tests, the overall continuous database integrity is not compromised.

This prevents the faulty products to reach testers and clients since the programming team is alerted of them automatically. This makes the whole process to be less costly than passing something that might still have fatal bugs to consumers. And with checking only parts it make changing these fragments work without affecting the original behavior of the existing code as a whole.

The program is protected from time and space bound factors. When the tests are done, the code is guaranteed to work under all circumstances even after updates done later. Like mentioned earlier, the whole system is protected from the domino effect of bugs and errors when an edit is done or when a feature is added. This makes sure that while the testing is compartmentalized, its connection to other modules remain.

In development, when the source code is being added onto, the likelihood of bugs increases. This will crash the software and then developers start to panic. Unit tests prevent this from happening since it is guaranteed that the module will not ruin the workings of other programs in the repository. This lets developers confidently add to the system.

There are cases when clients ask for quick fixes. With the fear of adding more modules, or removing them from the whole, it becomes easier for developers to deploy the fixes. There are no side effects that can cause the program to crash because the results are already tested without the need of predicting the logical errors that may occur.

Some may argue that this method of testing is way too time consuming to even consider. But the benefits can more than compensate for the time it takes to do the tests. In the long run, having unit tests can guarantee a smoother work flow as the software starts growing and then starts having extra features.




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