You get a report about a bug. You open the app, follow the steps to reproduce it and, as mentioned in the report, your app is misbehaving. What’s next?
You can either dig immediately in the code and fix the bug or you can re-reproduce the bug, only this time in a test. The second. Always go with the second option.
Here is why:
- From now on you will have a regression test. Meaning that if a change in the code breaks what you fixed you’ll get notified from the test suite and not your users
- It keeps you focused / You know when you finished. This is a benefit you get from TDD in general. When the test passes the bug is fixed and you can move to your next task. Also, since you have to make the test pass, anything else that popped up during your research for the bug can wait (I usually write it down to a notepad I keep next my keyboard).
- You get a better understanding of the code. By trying to write the test you get a better knowledge of how things are connected and communicate. Especially if you are new to a project this will boost your understanding significantly.
- You discover more corner cases. There are times that by writing this one test and seeing what inputs a class/function can have, you wonder how will the app behave under certain values. Finish the task at hand and then add a test for each case you want to explore. You might end up solving more bugs!
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