28
THE TEST BOUNDARY

Image

Yes, that’s right: The tests are part of the system, and they participate in the architecture just like every other part of the system does. In some ways, that participation is pretty normal. In other ways, it can be pretty unique.

TESTS AS SYSTEM COMPONENTS

There is a great deal of confusion about tests. Are they part of the system? Are they separate from the system? Which kinds of tests are there? Are unit tests and integration tests different things? What about acceptance tests, functional tests, Cucumber tests, TDD tests, BDD tests, component tests, and so on?

It is not the role of this book to get embroiled in that particular debate, and fortunately it isn’t necessary. From an architectural point of view, all tests are the same. Whether they are the tiny little tests created by TDD, or large FitNesse, Cucumber, SpecFlow, or JBehave tests, they are architecturally equivalent.

Tests, by their very nature, follow the Dependency Rule; they are very detailed and concrete; and they always depend inward toward the code being tested. In fact, you can think of the tests as the outermost circle in the architecture. Nothing within the system depends on the tests, and the tests always depend inward on the components of the system.

Tests are also independently deployable. In fact, most of the time they are deployed in test systems, rather than in production systems. So, even in systems where independent deployment is not otherwise necessary, the tests will still be independently deployed.

Tests are the most isolated system component. They are not necessary for system operation. No user depends on them. Their role is to support development, not operation. And yet, they are no less a system component than any other. In fact, in many ways they represent the model that all other system components should follow.

DESIGN FOR TESTABILITY

The extreme isolation of the tests, combined with the fact that they are not usually deployed, often causes developers to think that tests fall outside of the design of the system. This is a catastrophic point of view. Tests that are not well integrated into the design of the system tend to be fragile, and they make the system rigid and difficult to change.

The issue, of course, is coupling. Tests that are strongly coupled to the system must change along with the system. Even the most trivial change to a system component can cause many coupled tests to break or require changes.

This situation can become acute. Changes to common system components can cause hundreds, or even thousands, of tests to break. This is known as the Fragile Tests Problem.

It is not hard to see how this can happen. Imagine, for example, a suite of tests that use the GUI to verify business rules. Such tests may start on the login screen and then navigate through the page structure until they can check particular business rules. Any change to the login page, or the navigation structure, can cause an enormous number of tests to break.

Fragile tests often have the perverse effect of making the system rigid. When developers realize that simple changes to the system can cause massive test failures, they may resist making those changes. For example, imagine the conversation between the development team and a marketing team that requests a simple change to the page navigation structure that will cause 1000 tests to break.

The solution is to design for testability. The first rule of software design—whether for testability or for any other reason—is always the same: Don’t depend on volatile things. GUIs are volatile. Test suites that operate the system through the GUI must be fragile. Therefore design the system, and the tests, so that business rules can be tested without using the GUI.

THE TESTING API

The way to accomplish this goal is to create a specific API that the tests can use to verify all the business rules. This API should have superpowers that allow the tests to avoid security constraints, bypass expensive resources (such as databases), and force the system into particular testable states. This API will be a superset of the suite of interactors and interface adapters that are used by the user interface.

The purpose of the testing API is to decouple the tests from the application. This decoupling encompasses more than just detaching the tests from the UI: The goal is to decouple the structure of the tests from the structure of the application.

STRUCTURAL COUPLING

Structural coupling is one of the strongest, and most insidious, forms of test coupling. Imagine a test suite that has a test class for every production class, and a set of test methods for every production method. Such a test suite is deeply coupled to the structure of the application.

When one of those production methods or classes changes, a large number of tests must change as well. Consequently, the tests are fragile, and they make the production code rigid.

The role of the testing API is to hide the structure of the application from the tests. This allows the production code to be refactored and evolved in ways that don’t affect the tests. It also allows the tests to be refactored and evolved in ways that don’t affect the production code.

This separation of evolution is necessary because as time passes, the tests tend to become increasingly more concrete and specific. In contrast, the production code tends to become increasingly more abstract and general. Strong structural coupling prevents—or at least impedes—this necessary evolution, and prevents the production code from being as general, and flexible, as it could be.

SECURITY

The superpowers of the testing API could be dangerous if they were deployed in production systems. If this is a concern, then the testing API, and the dangerous parts of its implementation, should be kept in a separate, independently deployable component.

CONCLUSION

Tests are not outside the system; rather, they are parts of the system that must be well designed if they are to provide the desired benefits of stability and regression. Tests that are not designed as part of the system tend to be fragile and difficult to maintain. Such tests often wind up on the maintenance room floor—discarded because they are too difficult to maintain.

..................Content has been hidden....................

You can't read the all page of ebook, please click here login for view all page.
Reset
3.231.55.243