Unit testing and training; a day to reflect and update.

I can't believe how long it has taken me to be bothered to convert the JUnit 3 tests to JUnit 4, and transfer the exercises on our training courses to be set around Eclipse. Sad I know, but without an appropriate lull in other work, and a need due to a forthcoming course that would benefit the change, I've never got around to doing the updates.

It didn't even take that long, but I'm off to PNG at the end of the week, and I thought it was an opportunity to update the pracs on the unit testing exercises. Previously, these were arranged to run from command line, using Ant. It was a simple transfer to Eclipse, with my main concern how Eclipse managed the project.

If any of the classpath definitions was absolute rather than relative, then anything I set up in a project would fail once I transfer Eclipse from my PC to another. In the end, the .classpath file and .project file look simple and are based on current node as the root.

This way, I can take my install of Eclipse, transfer to memory sticks, along with the exercises, and not worry about configuration problems.

As I only look at Java a few times a year, I end up ramping up over a time to get to the same level of comfort. The tool integration provides a great opportunity to demonstrate further approaches with greater ease, such as easier refactoring, clearer code coverage reports, and greater relevance to attendees work experience.

With that in mind, I am reviewing the code coverage tools I added as plugins, in the hope that there is something as sophisticated as Clover but that costs the same as a coffee; at the moment, most of the tools cost the same as a coffee machine.

Ideally I'd like to have centralised training servers with SVN and CI tools running, but without a regular need, it makes it hard to justify.

Now I've made the change with the tools, I can look at enhancing the content to increase the information on mock objects, have greater information on refactoring, demonstrate the ease with which you can write unit test cases, rather than having to assist students in editing code using notepad.