lundi 26 septembre 2016

The Benefits Of IBM I Series Unit Testing As Efficient

By Daniel Stone


There is no such thing as a perfect code. When it comes to software programming bugs are bound to be plenty during the development stage. Leave the clean up to quality assurance before alpha and beta release. With no proper work flow and organization during development stage, the process of development is going to take longer.

IBM is a widely known company that works with operating systems such us MS 2000 and Linux, among many of the other OS that use it. The I series compiles languages such as Pascal, c, assembly and more. IBM I series unit testing is basically used for I series apps. The testing method can vary depending on the developers working on the software.

This is a testing method where code is made to check the proper functionality of all fragments in the system, one by one. In a way, it is a process of automating tests in a compartmentalized way against the software. The tests are also added to version control as a means of documentation.

This method ensures that flaws are discovered on the code early. This is at a stage before the module is even pushed into the repository and before it reaches the final testers and the client. This is essentially test driven development. As the number of working fragments are added to the whole software, this way of exercising the code ensures that continuous integrity of the system.

This is a precaution to future add on features to the application. Looking at the bigger picture, it saves developers more time and money from debugging and revising the source code in case of post beta test errors. Putting these additional features will not have a domino effect of logical errors on the already existing functions.

This method protects the program time wise. Once a unit test is written, and tested on the said code, it is guaranteed that the fragment works, even in the future. It also protects the gradual integration of the system since when a test is written, it can be guaranteed that an error in one module is not caused by a different module with a separate feature.

In development, when the source code is being added onto, the likelihood of bugs increases. This will crash the software and then developers start to panic. Unit tests prevent this from happening since it is guaranteed that the module will not ruin the workings of other programs in the repository. This lets developers confidently add to the system.

Being able to release quick fixes is possible. The program becomes more flexible to quick changes. If a new feature needs to be deployed, there is still a probability that this deployment may cause a domino effect of bugs on the already existing software due to the side effects that the developer may not have predicted.

Many programmers will argue that while there are many benefits to this method, it is too time consuming to be worth it. It makes sense that precautionary measures are already established. The client is more likely to ask for additional functions and edits and this makes unit testing an indispensable process.




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