The Importance of Testing

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Principles of Computing (Part 1)

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Rice University

Principles of Computing (Part 1)

401 classificações

Curso 3 de 7 em Specialization Fundamentals of Computing

This two-part course builds upon the programming skills that you learned in our Introduction to Interactive Programming in Python course. We will augment those skills with both important programming practices and critical mathematical problem solving skills. These skills underlie larger scale computational problem solving and programming. The main focus of the class will be programming weekly mini-projects in Python that build upon the mathematical and programming principles that are taught in the class. To keep the class fun and engaging, many of the projects will involve working with strategy-based games. In part 1 of this course, the programming aspect of the class will focus on coding standards and testing. The mathematical portion of the class will focus on probability, combinatorics, and counting with an eye towards practical applications of these concepts in Computer Science. Recommended Background - Students should be comfortable writing small (100+ line) programs in Python using constructs such as lists, dictionaries and classes and also have a high-school math background that includes algebra and pre-calculus.

Na lição

Testing, plotting, and grids

This week, we will explain the importance of testing. We will also learn to solve problems with grids.

The Importance of Testing 4:03

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Scott Rixner
Professor
Computer Science
Joe Warren
Professor
Computer Science
Luay Nakhleh
Associate Professor
Computer Science; Biochemistry and Cell Biology

[MUSIC]

So this week we're going to talk about the importance of testing.

When people first start out in computer science,

they typically do not like the test.

All right, they find the process of thinking about their programs and

how to design them and how to actually implement them to be much more fun and

interesting and exciting than testing.

But, I would like to point out that testing is sort of an integral part of

this process.

Okay, that if you think carefully about how you're going to test your program it

actually makes the development of your program much, much easier,

because you've thought carefully about sort of the corner cases and

the things that your program should actually do.

So the point here that we're trying to make is that testing is an important and

interesting part, and

it does allow for you to think carefully about what you're doing.

I'd like to let give us a nice example here of a how testing is valuable.

>> So actually, I don't do any testing stunts.

>> [LAUGH].

>> I'm in this video just for the looks here.

>> [LAUGH]. >> Just to balance while

we're sitting here.

>> [LAUGH].

>> But more seriously, actually, after that 10 year break from programming,

from writing programs, in the last two or

three days I had the pleasure of writing code again.

And it was through testing that I understood

the actual details of the algorithm.

So I, we were trying to get algorithm to work, and we try.

Every time we try a few test cases, things would work.

But then we run into the next test case and it will fail.

And it was impossible to get the code working,

except through extensive testing of the code.

>> All right, so they're really, there's kind of two strategies for testing.

One is, you can be like Scott and just never write any erroneous code.

Just no bugs, perfect the first time through.

>> That seems the best way.

>> [LAUGH] Unfortunately, I don't think we can all teach you to be like Scott.

[LAUGH] However there's a second approach, and I want to say a little bit about my

experience in teaching students to program.

I teach and on campus version of an intro to programming class, and i also teach

introduction to interactive programming in Python, and we've run through

five sessions now, and in those sessions I've seen lots and lots of bad code.

And probably the worst case that I see is when a student is working on

a mini-project and they go and they essentially write the entire program.

They take it and they then say, hit Run.

And they have their fingers crossed, and they're hoping they're like Scott and

it's all going to run.

>> [LAUGH] >> Except

then they're severely disappointed because, bam, an error comes up So

they heroically go through their 50 lines, and they look for that error.

And then they finally find it and they fix it.

And they hit Run again, and another error comes up.

And after they're found about the seventh or

eighth errors they start to get frustrated.

Because it's really hard to find those errors in a 50-line program.

And so the best piece of advice I have about testing is the following.

Don't write your code and then test.

Write a little bit of code.

Test.

Write a little bit of code.

Test.

Write a little bit of code.

Test.

That will keep the pain of testing down at a much more tractable level because if

your program is working and you write a couple of lines of code and

then a test fails, you know where the failure is.

It's in that few lines that you've written.

Now you might think, wow with all this testing its going to take me lots of time.

But remember, if you test as you go, what you'll see is,

that the time you spend on finding those errors is really reduced.

And so at the end of the day, testing will save you time.

>> I think that's an excellent point here, and I think that in this class we want to

take the philosophy where, were going to ease you into testing, that were going to

provide you with a bunch of tests that you can run on your own.

And that will help you sort of to solidify whether or not your program's actually

working and hopefully help you to debug your program as you go.

But we also want you to spend the time to think about writing tests on your own and

so we're going to provide you with some infrastructure to help you do

that as well.

And so hopefully between these two,

sort of, testing methodologies, we'll help ease you into the process of testing and

convince you that what we're saying is correct.

The testing is just as important as writing your code.

And that testing is something that should go on in parallel with writing your code,

not something you just do at the end.

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