Chapter Wrap-up

Summary

On the surface, it may seem that complexities associated with proper testing are so great, they aren't worth the effort. It's striking how much code out there is running without any tests at all, the primary argument being that testing our software is a daunting endeavor. We'll add: even more so if done manually. Unfortunately, without rigorous automated testing, visibility of any issues in the code is incomplete or non-existent. Untested code is often quicker to write (not always), but it's definitely much slower to read, refactor, and fix.

In this chapter, we outlined some key reasons for going forward with tests from the get-go. One of the most compelling is mental health and a good night's sleep. No developer lies in their bed thinking: "I can't wait to be woken up in a few hours to put out some fires and fix bugs." But seriously: catching errors before deploying them to production can be a lifesaver for us (and the company).