Information Technology Reference
In-Depth Information
Evelyn:
Did all the tests pass?
Noah:
Ye s .
Evelyn:
How did you determine whether enough of the code was
tested adequately?
That line of questioning is a bit better, but it's still an unnecessarily
qualitative analysis of something that can be described more con-
cretely through some quantitative analysis. Let's go to the solution.
Solution
Once developers or teams believe they have written the corresponding
tests for their source code, you can run a code coverage tool to assess
the amount of source code that is actually executed by the tests. Many
of the tools will display the percentage of coverage by package and
class.
Using CI can ensure this test coverage is always up to date. For
instance, you can run a test coverage tool as a part of your CI system's
build script whenever there is a change to your version control reposi-
tory. We discuss code coverage in Chapter 7.
Manual communication mechanisms require a lot of coordination to
ensure the dissemination of project information to the right people in a
timely manner. Leaning over to the developer next to you and letting
her know that the latest build is on the shared drive is rather effective,
yet it doesn't scale very well. What if there are other developers who
need this information and they are on a break or otherwise unavail-
able? If a server goes down, how are you notified? Some believe they
can mitigate this risk by manually sending an e-mail. However, this
cannot ensure the information is communicated to the right people at
the right time because you may accidentally leave out interested par-
ties, and some may not have access to their e-mail at the time.
