Wednesday, October 3, 2007

To Test or Not to Test?

OK, I'll stop with the silly Shakespearean silliness.

Why do we test everything?

I'm talking about one line of code like this:

Before
WHERE line_of_business IN ( 'XYZ', 'ABC' )


After

WHERE line_of_business IN ( 'XYZ', 'ABC', '123' )


(this was the cause of my first screwup)

I added an extra filter on the IN list. Does that really require the complete testing of the entire (say 8 hour) process?

I've been in IT for 5+ years now and I understand the importance of testing, but this seems a tad ridiculous to me.

Is there a better way? Unit testing performed by another developer? Visual inspection by the DBA or group of peers?

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