| ▲ | tombert 9 hours ago | |
Exhaustive testing is hard, to be fair, especially if you don’t actually understand the code you’re writing. Tools like TLA+ and static analyzers exist precisely for this reason. An example I use to talk about hidden edge cases: Imagine we have this (pseudo)code
Someone might see this function, and unit test it based on the if statement like:
These tests pass, it’s merged.Except there’s a bug in this; what if you pass in a negative even number? Depending on the language, you will either get an exception or maybe a complex answer (which not usually something you want). The solution in this particular case would be to add a conditional, or more simply just make the type an unsigned integer. Obviously this is just a dumb example, and most people here could pick this up pretty quick, but my point is that sometimes bugs can hide even when you do (what feels like) thorough testing. | ||