Evil Unit Tests

submited by krishnas on Thu Sep 30th, 2010

The code I wrote nine months ago sucks. And I'm happy about it. Of course back then I thought what I was writing was the bee's knees, and that the code that I had written nine months before that was what sucked. And at that time, I thought that it was the code written nine months prior to that was what sucked. And on and on and on back to the beginning of my programming career, when 110 baud teletypes were all the rage. So why am I so happy about it? Simple: if I can look back at code I had written previously and know that the code I am writing today shows significant improvement, it means that I am still learning and growing as a coder. The day that I look at my older code and think that it is perfect will be a sad day indeed, as it will mean either: (a) I have learned all that there is to learn (highly unlikely), or (b) that my brain has calcified and can accept no more information. Either of these would be a sad state of affairs.

Topic: java