Where do unit tests come from?

Abstract

In Extreme programming unit testing is organized so that the unit tests are written before coding commences. For many programmers the selection of the test cases is something of an 'ad hoc' process. Where programmers are experienced in writing test sets it is common for them to use white box or structural test techniques. However, these rely on the structure of the code being available which is not the case with XP. This article describes a principled way of creating powerful, functional unit tests from informal descriptions of the units. © Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg 2003.