The Power of Go: Tests

Built-in testing support in Go places tests at the center of any project—from command-line tools to complex servers and APIs. This book will introduce you to all the testing capabilities in Go, teach you how to write tests for the most complex tasks, and share the accumulated experience of the Go community on best testing practices.

Filled with hundreds of code examples, the book demonstrates real tests and real issues, guiding you step by step through the testing process.

"If you lose your job because you applied the advice from this book, it might be for the best. But if that happens, I will make it my personal mission to help you find a job at a company that values creating software that truly works."

You will learn how to use tests to design programs that solve user problems, how to create reliable codebases on a solid foundation, and how to deal with problematic, legacy code using tests, turning it into a comfortable work environment.

From choosing clear and behavior-oriented test names to powerful techniques for managing dependencies such as databases and concurrent servers, "The Power of Go: Testing" contains everything you need to master the art of testing in Go.

What you will learn:

By reading this book and completing the assignments, you will master:

• Creating practical, reliable, and user-friendly programs in Go using tests.
• Utilizing all modern capabilities of Go testing libraries and tools.
• Standard techniques: table-driven tests, parallel testing, deep comparison, and golden files.
• Generating random input data and property-based testing.
• Usability testing and exploratory testing.
• Advanced methods: fuzzing and mutation testing with detailed examples.
• Supporting and simplifying bug fixing, refactoring, and dealing with legacy code through tests.
• Testing error handling, validation, sentinel objects, wrapped errors, and other "sad" paths.
• Testing complex systems: user interaction, databases, CLI, and HTTP servers.
• Refactoring legacy systems with cumbersome dependencies.
• Testing concurrent and asynchronous APIs.
• Checking the security of concurrent code execution.
• Writing script tests for CLI using the testscript language.
• Using mocks, doubles, stubs, spies, fakes, and adapters.
• Avoiding fragile, weak, and unstable tests, and how to fix them.
• Faking time for testing.
• Designing useful, informative, and complex test cases.
• Writing tests that tell a story, one that is understandable and engaging.
• Building a culture of quality in your organization and conducting productive code reviews.

With the help of this book, you will learn to create even the most complex projects from scratch, using a simple, reliable, and resilient workflow for developing quality software.

Tests are not the goal, as I often remind my students: the goal is programming with confidence.