Kill All Mutants! (Intro to Mutation Testing)
How good is your test suite? Would it all still pass if the tested code was changed? If so, there may be problems with your code, your tests, or both!
Mutation Testing reveals these cases. It makes lots of slightly altered versions, called "mutants", of your code. If any mutants let all of the code's tests pass, that implies certain flaws.
This talk will tell you how to use mutation testing, its benefits, drawbacks, inner workings, and history. There will be several examples, and a list of tools for many popular languages.
You will come away equipped with a powerful new technique for making sure your tests are strict and your code is meaningful.
Dave Aronson
Dave is a semi-retired software development consultant (writing code *and* giving advice on processes, tools, etc.), with 36 years of professional experience in a wide variety of languages, systems, frameworks, techniques, domains, etc. He is the T. Rex of Codosaurus, LLC (his one-man consulting firm, which explains how he can get such a cool title, at http://www.Codosaur.us/) near Washington, DC, USA. In his spare time, his latest hobby is to make mead.