Pragmatic Unit Testing in C# with NUnit (Pragmatic Programmers) (Paperback)

~ (Author), David Thomas (Author)

Editorial Reviews

Product Description

Learn how to improve your C# coding skills using unit testing. Despite it's name, unit testing is really a coding technique, not a testing technique. Unit testing is done by programmers, for programmers. It's primarily for our benefit: we get improved confidence in our code, better ability to make deadlines, less time spent in the debugger, and less time beating on the code to make it work correctly.

This book shows how to write tests, but more importantly, it goes where other books fear to tread and gives you concrete advice and examples of what to test--the common things that go wrong in all of our programs. Discover the tricky hiding places where bugs breed, and how to catch them using the freely available NUnit framework. It's easy to learn how to think of all the things in your code that are likely to break. We'll show you how with helpful mnemonics, summarized in a handy tip sheet (also available from our website).

With this book you will:

Write better code, and take less time to write it

Discover the tricky places where bugs breed

Learn how to think of all the things that could go wrong

Test individual pieces of code without having to include the whole project

Test effectively with the whole team

We'll also cover how to use Mock Objects for testing, how to write high quality test code, and how to use unit testing to improve your design skills. We'll show you frequent "gotchas"--along with the fixes--to save you time when problems come up.

But the best part is that you don't need a sweeping mandate to change your whole team or your whole company. You don't need to adopt Extreme Programming, or Test-Driven Development, or change your development process in order to reap the proven benefits of unit testing. You can start unit testing, the pragmatic way, right away.

Other Pragmatic Programmer books:

Pragmatic Project Automation: How to Build, Deploy, and Monitor Java Applications (Mike Clark)
Pragmatic Unit Testing in Java with JUnit (Andy Hunt and Dave Thomas)
Pragmatic Version Control using CVS (Dave Thomas and Andy Hunt)

About the Author

Andrew Hunt is an experienced examiner and educator.

Thomas, before moving the U.S. in 1994, founded an IS09001 certified English software company that delivered sophisticated, custom software projects throughout the world. He is an independent consultant.

Product Details

• Paperback: 176 pages
• Publisher: The Pragmatic Programmers; 1st edition (May 2004)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0974514020
• ISBN-13: 978-0974514024
• Product Dimensions: 8.9 x 7.5 x 0.6 inches
• Shipping Weight: 12.8 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 4.3 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (11 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #780,286 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

16 of 17 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Clear and concise, June 27, 2005

By	Scott D. Duncan (Chicago, IL USA) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

The message of this book is: responsible developers unit test, and it's easy to do, so do it! If you're tired of reading 800 page books that should've been 200 pages, then you will find this book a refreshing change. It gets straight to the point, explaining in an easy-to-read style how to unit test .NET applications, including how to install & use the popular NUnit & NMock tools. It also explains how to design effective unit tests, and what to do in common problem situations (such as incomplete requirements). It is a great first book on unit testing for .NET, but since it is a pragmatic guide it does not cover the more esoteric, quirky issues you may run into. It also does not discuss or promote test-driven development techniques and theories. It is strictly a nuts & bolts discussion of .NET unit testing with NUnit & NMock, but if you need to be unit testing today (not next month), then this is the book to get.

27 of 33 people found the following review helpful:

1.0 out of 5 stars Over-extended and over-rated., March 23, 2008

By	Harvey Birdman (USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Pragmatic Unit Testing in C# with NUnit, 2nd Edition (Paperback)

I have to respectfully disagree with all the fawning reviews. It's a chatty, drawn out, tedious read, something of an accomplishment given the fact that it's only ~200 pages long. Frankly, anything more then something like the O'Reilly Pocket Reference is overkill on this subject. NUnit is a snap to use and the freely available documentation and tutorials are more than adequate and not nearly so time-consuming to digest.

The first passage that discusses actual test coding (~20 pages or so into the book) presents a simple case where a method should accept an integer array as a parameter and return the largest element. The book then explains how this function, if it behaves properly, should perform. A series of simple test cases are discussed before we get to the real toughie for all you computer scientists out there - a data set consisting of negative integers. A test vector consisting of the array [-9,-8,-7] is passed to the method and -7 is returned. The book explains 'It might look odd, but indeed -7 is larger than -9. We're glad we straightened that out now, rather than in the debugger or in production code where it might not be so obvious.'

ARE YOU KIDDING ME?!? Just what audience was this thing written for? One would have thought that that little gem wouldn't have been necessary... but in fact that is the tone of the entire book. Expect to have your hand held in this manner throughout. If that's the sort of thing that appeals to you, you'll love this one. If, on the other hand, you're trying to learn to incorporate NUnit testing into C# development in an efficient, professional manner, save your money and time and read the NUnit docs.

3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Good, but missing critical elements, June 27, 2008

By	jeffery (Somewhere in Kansas, USA) - See all my reviews

Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: Pragmatic Unit Testing in C# with NUnit, 2nd Edition (Paperback)

This is a decent getting started book, but it doesn't give good coverage of things such as NUnit projects or using app.config files with NUnit.

Unfortunately, this book isn't good as a stand-alone. I'll admit that it did help me get started, but it lacks so much that I can't give it more stars. A second volume that covers more advanced topics is suggested, or the next edition can add the missing parts.