Scenario testing is the new word for it and I think this is a game changer.

Two of the reasons I never liked writing tests is

- they didn’t seem to usually assert much internal logic

- they would have to be maintained along with the original code

I think scenario testing is much better instead because the actual way a person uses a feature hardly changes but the internals might change a lot.

So imagine I’m making an e-commerce website. There are lots of internal mechanisms. I’ll have an agent testing all the functionalities as if it were a customer. This gives me much much more confidence while writing code because it is more uncorellated with the code.

Tomorrow I can change a lot of internals but the testing agent stays the same.

There’s something to note though: not all code is possible to be scenario tested. Like data engineering and other things where the feedback time is huge.

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anthonypasq 5 hours ago | parent | next [-]

are we just re-inventing playwright tests except 10x slower and infinity times more expensive?

i feel like im going insane

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hugs 4 hours ago | parent | next [-]

since the rise of agentic coding tools, it feels like we're in a new "eternal september" of people discovering ui end-to-end test automation.

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acdha 4 hours ago | parent | next [-]

Also the merits of documentation and specs. It’s been eye-opening to see the subset of developers who were almost disdainful about writing documentation for their colleagues but are now tripping over themselves to do so for their clanker.

	▲	Daishiman an hour ago \| parent \| next [-]
		Agents read the docs. People don't. That's the underlying reason.
	▲	simianwords 2 hours ago \| parent \| prev [-]
		Clanker is the new excuse to use hard R against something you don't like.

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inigyou 4 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

People are rediscovering everything. Some people have proposed using a more formal language to tell the AI precisely what code to write. That's a compiler.

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righthand 2 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

Well playwright tests used to be called puppeteer tests which used to be called selenium tests, so you tell me.

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avensec 3 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

So, throw out the traditional test pyramid, shift right, and rely more on persona testing than fine-grained atomic tests? I would hope teams don't need to re-learn that lesson for themselves, but...

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konart 5 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

>Scenario testing is the new word

How is scenario different from a behavior (as in Behavior-Driven Development)?

Gherkin and things like Cucumber are not something new, are they?

	▲	rahoulb 6 minutes ago \| parent [-]
		My clankers are instructed to use "Outside In development" with "red/green TDD" at all times. They write really good Gherkin features and then work inwards writing unit tests as they go - checking that they fail before implementation so it's actually testing something worthwhile. And the code they ship is decent quality (not as good as me most of the time - but a LOT better than me when I'm tired or I'm pissed off about something or the work is really boring).

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righthand 2 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

This already exists. You mean capturing user flows which should already be supplied by product to the developer. A decent system is Behavior Driven Development (though honestly a poor acronym for it’s use).

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hulitu 3 days ago | parent | prev [-]

> Two of the reasons I never liked writing tests

Are you an engineer ? You must test your "creation". Or would you expect that the microwave owen you just bougth will be tested by your child while getting burned ?

	▲	robotresearcher 5 hours ago \| parent [-]
		'I never liked writing tests' is not the same as 'I don't write tests'.