"Integrated tests are a scam", that's the title of a talk by J.B. Rainsberger. One of the arguments he makes is that the sheer combinatorial complexity, or in other words, the sheer number of tests you have to write when integration testing is makes it utterly naive to trust that you and/or your team should be able to write and maintain all these tests. (NEWER VIDEO on the same topic: https://youtu.be/2pwpSU0c_TA)
The number of integration tests you have to write for A if A integrates with B and B with C is the number of states in all these multiplied! In other words A * B * C. What's worse, if you are also integration testing B and unit testing C then the number of tests you have to write are C! (factorial).
In this video I give a simple example that illustrates this problem.
TALKS MENTIONED
► Integration Tests are a scam
J.B. Rainsberger
https://vimeo.com/80533536
► Integration Tests are Bogus
Piotr Szotkowski
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7XI3H_rKmRU
► Boundaries
Gary Bernhardt
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yTkzNHF6rMs
GEAR USED
► MIC: RØDE SmartLav+ http://amzn.to/21nVI3o
► CAMERA: GoPro Hero 3 White http://amzn.to/29WWRvB
Original upload date:
Jul 8, 2016
