SimpleTest: Because clicking on forms is for suckers

SESSION OVERVIEW
SimpleTest is a unit testing framework for performing automated tests on your PHP code. This session’s goal is two-fold:

1. Provide practical, hands-on information for developers about how to incorporate unit tests into their day-to-day workflow in order to produce cleaner, less buggy, and easier-to-maintain code.
2. Brainstorm about effective testing strategies and ways to incorporate unit testing into the the larger Drupal core development process.

Do any of the following sound like you?

• You have changed code at one place in your module that broke things in another place and you spent way too long trying to track down the problem (or worse, didn’t find it at all until your users started yelling?).
• You frequently (or not frequently enough ;)) waste dozens of minutes clicking around on all kinds of forms in order to test your module.
• Your module doesn’t have enough users to act as a QA team, so basically you’re it.
• You are paranoid to change anything in your code once it’s working since there are ooky edge cases, and you can’t ever remember what they all are.
• Thinking about developing your module gives you nausea and/or shortness of breath. ;)

If so, you should attend this session. There is a better way!

AGENDA

• An overview of different types of testing
• How does SimpleTest fit in?
• A tour of the SimpleTest Module and API
• A demonstration of how to create test coverage for a module.
• Discussion: How can we make SimpleTest module easier to grok/work with?
• Discussion: How can we help incorporate testing as a core development process, and where should we focus first?

GOALS

• An understanding by all attendees of what SimpleTest module does, how it works, and how to use it.
• A solid plan on how to approach test coverage in Drupal core and beyond, including bug reports/feature requests against SimpleTest module to aid in lowering the barrier to entry, an outline of an effective target to shoot for in terms of core test coverage (API-level vs. UI-level).

RESOURCES
The following provide some intro material on SimpleTest which might be good to skim prior to the session:

• An Introduction to Unit Testing in Drupal
• Official SimpleTest documentation
• SimpleTest Module API documentation
• A Drupal Module Developer’s Guide to SimpleTest