Automated Testing is the Foundation of Agile Software Development
No. With codebases tested using automated testing, the engineers write the tests as part of writing the code itself. Automated testing enables solid agile practices like iteration and refactoring with confidence. This is an essential distinction from no-test waterfall development. With untested software and waterfall practices, the developers are constantly afraid of improving any existing code (paying down code debt) because it might break existing functionality.
With automated tested development, both QA (quality assurance) and Product Acceptance are still essential. However, the test suite dramatically reduces the need for regression testing. We know that we have covered existing functionality by the tests we already wrote.
Always be testing and focus on customer outcomes!
Let's Get StartedRed means we write a test first, then watch it fail. Green means we implement a feature to make our test pass. Refactor means we have confidence that our codebase can grow and adapt with a reasonable cost of change and predictable outcome.
What sets Helios apart is our core coding philosophy and standard engagement practices:
- Automated testing: Your test suite is hooked up to continuous integration and that also means your CI suite runs on every commit and pull request.
- A sensible deployment strategy.
- Effectively managing the cost of change.
How We Do This
- Identify and removing dependencies.
- Reducing cyclomatic complexity whenever we can.
"Cyclomatic complexity" = the number of times a program might pass through any given module (or object) in our codebase.
The greater the cyclomatic complexity of any given part of our code, the more complected (intertwined) our entire codebase becomes.
Another way to think about complecting (or intertwining) is to say the code has “too many concerns.”