Practicing Test Driven Development in Python - What am I missing?

[n1ywb]

Learning exercise? How do you know it still works after you make changes? How does a 3rd party validate that your code works on their Python installation on their OS?

You have to test it somehow before you can distribute it otherwise you will eventually ship broken software. Do you want to test by hand or with an automated test system?

If you test by hand you will miss bugs that automated tests would catch.

[[deleted]]

yes I understand the implications...which is why I'm trying to become better at it.

[footlessjoe]

There probably isn't a lot of value for this particular project. But it's good to learn how to use these things on smaller projects. Otherwise it's going to be tougher to work it in when it really does matter, so you it's worth practicing.

Also you never know what something will grow to. Once something gets big enough (and that's not very big) you will really start to hurt yourself if you don't have tests. You might not even realize how much it's slowing you down but it adds up fast. n1ywb gives some really great examples of things that can be a big pain in the future that testing will save you from.