Chapter 18. Test Design and Refactoring

On the last day of our XP road trip, we'll be leaving the Great Plains behind and heading up into the mountain passes. Hopefully, all the work we've done up to this point will keep us from getting buried in an avalanche or stranded like the infamous Donner party. (Customers may complain when the system isn't right, but they get awfully annoyed when you eat them ;-)

In this chapter, we're going to talk about some simple test design. "Whoa!" you may say. "We're already writing executable tests isn't the time for design long past?"

No, actually, the time for overdesign is past. The right time for just-in-time-design is always "now," and that's the kind of design we want to talk about. We've been writing essentially the simplest tests that could possibly work for acceptance testing, and they will work, more often than you expect. But sometimes they won't. Sometimes they'll just have to get more complicated (don't you hate it when that happens?). Well, if you're lucky enough never to run into this situation, would you please buy our next set of lottery tickets?