I teachers were using automated tests instead of printf in their intro courses, it would be so much better. I don’t think that introducing all the various kind of tests is usefull, but just showing the concept of automated tests instead of manual ones would be a huge step forward.
The thing is the way they motivate new students to learn programming is by having them write programs that do something. Making a test green isn’t as motivating as visually seeing the output of your work, and test fixtures can be complex to set up depending on the language. I mean students don’t learn how to factor their code into methods until later into such a course, they’re learning if statements and for loops and basic programming constructs. Don’t you think having to explain setting up test fixtures and dependency inversion is a bit too much for people at that level?
I teachers were using automated tests instead of printf in their intro courses, it would be so much better. I don’t think that introducing all the various kind of tests is usefull, but just showing the concept of automated tests instead of manual ones would be a huge step forward.
The thing is the way they motivate new students to learn programming is by having them write programs that do something. Making a test green isn’t as motivating as visually seeing the output of your work, and test fixtures can be complex to set up depending on the language. I mean students don’t learn how to factor their code into methods until later into such a course, they’re learning if statements and for loops and basic programming constructs. Don’t you think having to explain setting up test fixtures and dependency inversion is a bit too much for people at that level?