Some quotes on Unit Testing

From an old article of Heinz Kabutz

JSC: What are some of the big mistakes that even experienced Java developers make?

Kabutz: Not unit testing. At conferences, I ask, "How many of you have unit tests for your code?" Almost no one raises their hands -- and these are experienced professionals. While programmers start projects believing they should have unit tests, they often don't take the time to write them up front, and they end up spending time fixing bugs. We should always perform unit tests.

A good unit test will not only flush out problems before you get close to production, but it will help regression test your system as well. I see it over and over -- very few companies have the discipline to enforce the use of unit tests.

And a following interview of Joshua Bloch

JSC: Java Champion Dr. Heinz Kabutz finds that failure to unit test is a big problem among Java developers. He reports, "At conferences, I ask, 'How many of you have unit tests for your code?' Almost no one raises their hands -- and these are experienced professionals." Your reaction?

Bloch: I'm really sorry to hear it. Unit tests are essential! If you don't have them, you don't know whether your code works. Having a good set of unit tests gives you much more confidence that your code works in the first place and that you don't introduce bugs as you maintain it. Inevitably, you will introduce bugs, but your unit tests will often let you find the bugs as soon as you introduce them, so you can fix them before they cause any damage.

Arggh, this was 2007.

3 years later I still see project /organization that does not believe in unit tests, and where I hear " We don't have the bandwidth to do unit test".

Prehistoric software development. Upfront tests, TDD, anyone ?