[Tutor] unwanted 'zero' ending

[Alan Gauld]

On 28/06/13 02:32, Jim Mooney wrote:

> Hmm, so it seems a lot of trouble for a few hardcoded tests I could
> run myself from the IDE interpreter window.

The point is that you should write the doc strings before you write the 
code. Then anyone can test that your function does at least work for the 
original design cases. And if you change it you can run that minimum 
test set very easily and quickly.

> the function out myself. I guess there is no easy substitute for
> simply beating up your functions with a slew of garbage, since you're
> the one who understands them ;')

And that's precisely why the person who writes the code is the worst 
possible person to test it. If you know how it works you are usually 
blind sided to it's defects! Ideally all testing should be done by a 
third party, but in practice it's rarely possible. But  it's one of the 
ideas behind the concept of pair-programming.

But if you want comprehensive testing, regardless of who is doing it, 
you do need more than doctest. It's a useful sanity check and much 
better than nothing or even random hacking at the >>> prompt.

-- 
Alan G
Author of the Learn to Program web site
http://www.alan-g.me.uk/