# How I Write Tests

DevFeed: [How I Write Tests](<https://devfeed.tech/articles/how-i-write-tests-21939.md>)

Original publisher: [Read original article](<https://blog.nelhage.com/2016/12/how-i-test/>)

Author: Nelson Elhage

Published: 2016-12-29T19:00:00Z

Content type: opinion

Language: en

Sources: [Nelson Elhage](<https://devfeed.tech/sources/nelson-elhage.md>)

Topics: [Testing](<https://devfeed.tech/topics/testing.md>), [Test-driven development](<https://devfeed.tech/topics/tdd.md>), [Development](<https://devfeed.tech/topics/development.md>), [Software](<https://devfeed.tech/topics/software.md>)

Tags: [automated](<https://devfeed.tech/tags/automated.md>), [components](<https://devfeed.tech/tags/components.md>), [dependencies](<https://devfeed.tech/tags/dependencies.md>), [legacy-code](<https://devfeed.tech/tags/legacy-code.md>), [modules](<https://devfeed.tech/tags/modules.md>), [test-coverage](<https://devfeed.tech/tags/test-coverage.md>), [testing](<https://devfeed.tech/tags/testing.md>), [tests](<https://devfeed.tech/tags/tests.md>)

## AI overview

The author describes a practical testing philosophy for software development. They advocate designing testable, minimally coupled modules, writing each module and its tests together, and maintaining ongoing automated test coverage without treating test-driven-development rules as rigid requirements.

## Source excerpt

The longer I spend as a software engineer, the more obsessive I get about testing. I fully subscribe to the definition of legacy code as "code without an automated test suite." I'm convinced that the best thing you can do to encourage fast progress in a test suite is to design for testing and have a fast, reliable, comprehensive test suite. But for all that, I've never really subscribed to any of the test-driven-development manifestos or practices that I've encountered.