The problem with extremists is that they inevitably color the mainstream’s perception of a thing, whether it be a race, a culture, or a software development practice.

In truth though, it is also important for the mainstream to use better judgement and stop falling for that trap. For example, I’ve read several articles and blog posts that attack unit testing (and by extension Test Driven Development) as a practice. What is interesting is that many of the points used to pillory unit testing are examples of taking the practice of unit testing to the extreme, and not necessarily a reasonable and mainstream usage of the practice.

So let’s make this very clear using a simple logical statement.

The fact that Unit Testing is a fundamental part of Extreme Programming does not imply that Extreme Programming is a fundamental part of Unit Testing.

For example, as I said many times, code coverage is not the end goal of unit testing. That’s extremist to say so. Your time is better spent focusing on automating tests for the most troublesome or important code.

Automated unit tests are NOT a replacement for system testing, beta testing, integration testing, nor any other kind of testing. Unit tests are only one small part of the testing equation, but they are an important part, just as all the other types of testing are important.

So in most cases, it pays to stop looking to the extremists to make a case against a practice (such as unit testing) and start talking to those using it in the real world and getting real results.