Assertion #1


assert(true, "Developer (unit) testing will revolutionize software development; those who do it will come out on top.")

Testing seems to reaching a critical mass that I think is going to sweep over most of the software development community. It speeds development, allows longer-lived software, increases the clarity and understandability of code, and gives those who do it a competitive advantage.

It reaches farther than just personal development, though, and begins to affect hose outside of a given project, especially for library and developer-use type software. A tested library is easier to grasp, has a clearer API, and perhaps most importantly, is easy to test against. The act of testing their own code forces a library developer to design the code so that it's testable and include the hooks necessary for easy testing. I know that I personally, if given a choice between two equivalent libraries, one of which is tested and the other of which is not, will pick the unit tested library every time. Probably I'll even pick it if it is less fully featured than the untested library.

I can envision a day when library and tool selection and purchasing hinge on whether things are tested or not. I can also see companies and projects scrambling to add tests, and others leapfrogging them while they struggle to catch up.

So what does this have to do with Ruby? Check out my introduction.