Test & Code in Python Brian Okken

Who should do QA?
How does that change with different projects and teams?
What does "doing QA" mean, anyway?


Answering these questions are the goals of this episode.
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PyCharm Professional: Try PyCharm Pro for 4 months and learn how PyCharm will save you time. Promo Code: TESTANDCODE22Support Test & Code in Python
Links:
Test Automation - Who Should be Involved? | Thoughtworks

In this episode, I talk with Paul Ganssle about a fun workflow that he calls pseudo-TDD.
Pseudo-TDD is a way to keep your commit history clean and your tests passing with each commit.
This workflow includes using pytest xfail and some semi-advanced version control features.


Some strict forms of TDD include something like this:



write a failing test that demonstrates a lacking feature or defect
write the source code to get the test to pass
refactor if necessary
repeat


In reality, at least for me, the software development process is way more messy than this, and not so smooth and linear.


Pauls workflow allow you to develop non-linearly, but commit cleanly.
Special Guest: Paul Ganssle.
Sponsored By:
PyCharm Professional: Try PyCharm Pro for 4 months and learn how PyCharm will save you time. Promo Code: TESTANDCODE22Support Test & Code in Python
Links:
A pseudo-TDD workflow using expected failuresepisode 171: How and why I use pytest's xfail - Paul Ganssleepisode 165: pytest xfail policy and workflowepisode 162: Flavors of TDD

In the preface of "Python Testing with pytest" I list some reasons to use pytest, under a section called "why pytest?". Someone asked me recently, a different but related question "why NOT unittest?".


unittest is an xUnit style framework. For me, xUnit style frameworks are fatally flawed for software testing.


That's what this episode is about, my opinion of



"Why NOT unittest?", or more broadly,
"What are the fatal flaws of xUnit?"
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Links:
Python Testing with pytest, Second Editionunittest docsunittest assert methodsxUnit - Wikipedia

A prototype is a a preliminary model of something, from which other forms are developed or copied.
In software, we think of prototypes as early things, or a proof of concept.
We don't often think of prototyping during daily software development or maintenance. I think we should.
This episode is about growing better designed software with the help of a prototype mindset.
Sponsored By:
PyCharm Professional: Try PyCharm Pro for 4 months and learn how PyCharm will save you time. Promo Code: TESTANDCODE22Support Test & Code in Python
Links:
Selecting a programming language can be a form of premature optimization — Brett Cannon's blog post

Paul Ganssle, is a software developer at Google, core Python dev, and open source maintainer for many projects, has some thoughts about pytest's xfail.
He was an early skeptic of using xfail, and is now an proponent of the feature.
In this episode, we talk about some open source workflows that are possible because of xfail.
Special Guest: Paul Ganssle.
Sponsored By:
PyCharm Professional: Try PyCharm Pro for 4 months and learn how PyCharm will save you time. Promo Code: TESTANDCODE22Support Test & Code in Python
Links:
How and why I use pytest's xfail — Paul's blog post mentioned in the episodeCraft Minimal Bug Reports — Matthew Rocklin's articleepisode 111: Subtests in Python with unittest and pytest - Paul Ganssleepisode 165: pytest xfail policy and workflowepisode 166: unittest expectedFailure and xfail

Prayson Daniel, a principle data scientist, discusses testing machine learning pipelines with pytest.


Prayson is using pytest for some pretty cool stuff, including:



unit tests, of course
testing pipeline stages
counterfactual testing
performance testing


All with pytest. So cool.
Special Guest: Prayson Daniel.
Sponsored By:
PyCharm Professional: Try PyCharm Pro for 4 months and learn how PyCharm will save you time. Promo Code: TESTANDCODE22Support Test & Code in Python
Links:
Python Bytes 250, with Prayson Daniel — Listen to this for more of an introduction to Prayson