QA-Unit Tests vs. Agile-Unit Tests

The definitive guide to understand how much different Agile testing is from traditional testing.

Recently, I published an article mentioning the existence of two kinds of unit tests: Agile-Unit Tests and QA-Unit Tests. Unfortunately, this naming is mine, and although both techniques have very different focuses, the practitioners of each one use the same term for both of them: “Unit Test”. That leads to lots of misunderstandings and problems. And it also makes very hard to learn the other one. Specially the Agile-Unit Tests. In this article, I will talk about the different kinds of tests, what are each one good for, and I hope to help you to understand the value of each one.

Living The Misunderstanding

But, before starting, I want to show you a conversation between Jim Coplien and Robert C. Martin in which they cannot communicate because each one give a different meaning to Unit Test. One is a practitioner of QA-Unit Tests, while the other is a practitioner of Agile-Unit Tests (note that Robert C. Martin is one of the creators of the Agile Manifesto). The video is old (and the quality bad), but it was a response from Jim Coplien to Robert C. Martin about the need of following TDD as an ethical principle for every developer.