Oh Testing, You So Crazy

So love it or hate it, testing your code is practically wrapped up nice and tight into Ruby on Rails. At first I was a little annoyed at this, being that most of my coding experience has been from self-teaching, and viewed this as a very large waste of time.

Well, I do see the positives of test-driven development now: it really forces you to THINK about what you are doing. I know this sounds stupid and incredibly “duh”; however you tend to think about the “why” about what you are doing. Plus, let’s face it: it is just good practice.

I do wish that was more common in the PHP world. Yes, it exists, but no one learns how to properly test as they are learning PHP. I learned PHP in the “cowboy” sense of the term, and just sort of sucked up what I needed to know, and learned about new things as they needed them. I am certainly learning Ruby on Rails in a much more academic way, and in turn I am picking up the language and the culture extremely fast.

That being said, Ruby can still be a pain just to get running. Getting a proper testing suite is like pulling teeth without novacaine. However, it is worth it in the end.