Testing Karma

I think Earl said it best when he said "Do good things, and good things happen." What kind of good things? How about good software engineering practices? Use Case modeling, sequence diagramming, continuous integration and automated testing are all good starts.

Diagrams and models are good because they clearly communicate intent. The picture is worth more than a thousand words if a stakeholder (or peer) can talk to the diagram and say something as simple as "delete that line and add this one", or "change the arrow to point the other way on the sequence flow". Then everyone goes, "ah... now I get it". Practices like these definitely pay dividends over waiting to fix any architectural flaw later in the lifecycle of the system.

Creating automated tests, too, are equally valuable. And not hard. And can help you develop better code. Sometimes writing unit tests after the fact can be a real head-scratcher. Thinking about the code and the test as a singular unit can help structure the code in better ways. "When you think of code and test as one, testing is easy and code is beautiful."

Also from artima :

• The perfect is the enemy of the good. An imperfect test today is better than a perfect test someday.
• Rejoice when they pass; Rejoice when they fail.

Be creative and flexible when writing your tests. Write that ugly test for the "untestable" code. Take that first step and good things start to happen. And when you're walking, you won't notice the steps because they will have become habit.