Test-Driven Development for C++ Training

This training course helps you build knowledge, understanding and skill in the engineering practices needed to build great C++ code. You learn how to build flexible and modular software with very few defects, software that can have a long useful life. We teach you how to prevent defects and how to keep code clean over years of evolving needs.

Among other things, you'll learn the difference between Debug-Later Programming (the most popular programming technique on the planet) and Test-Driven Development.



Learning Model

We learn new skills by doing, not just reading, listening, and thinking. Engineers are not so interested in changing how they work if the change does not help solve some identified problem. We’ve found this learning cycle to be invaluable to attendees of our courses.

  • Present a problem -- problems motivate change
  • Present a potential solution -- the idea that may help
  • Demonstrate part of the solution -- remove ambiguity
  • Participant does an exercise -- learn by doing
  • Experience debrief -- identify and discuss both positive and negative reactions

In this course, we repeat this learning cycle, growing skills with each iteration. Our goal is to build new skills on top of the attendees' existing skills.

Course Length Options

Audience

  • Software Developers
  • Technical team leaders
  • Managers that want to know more about the technology they manage

Course Outline

    Test Driven Development

    Module Objective: Software developers make mistakes. Mistakes undetected become defects with potentially huge costs. In this section, attendees can learn the motivations behind TDD and how the short test-driven cycles may help prevent defects.

    • Why Test Driven Development?
    • What is Test Driven Development?
    • The Microcycle
    • Exercise
    • Debrief

    During the debrief, we explore what people liked about TDD and what concerns them. Most attendees like the experience, but also have a serious concerns or two. It is important to bring the concerns into the open. This is a rare opportunity to reflect on how we work and to envision how TDD may help us improve.

    Your Software Development Environment

    Module Objective: Look at what is special about your programming environment, and some of the current industry-standard practice inefficiencies. We hope to show that TDD is well suited for improving the product quality, as well as reducing some of the frustrations and waste when testing code in your environment.

    TDD and Collaborating Modules - testing the code in the middle

    Module Objective: The most valuable code you have (the code with the potential longest life) has dependencies. This code embodies what makes your product special. Automated tests help preserve your investment, allowing changes that have fewer unwanted side effects (defects!). We'll look at principles and techniques to guide developers in creating modular, testable, and tested embedded software. We'll introduce Spies and Fakes. You'll see how Spies and Fakes can fully exercise the code under test.

    • Object Oriented Principles Applied to C++
    • Designing to interfaces
    • Information hiding
    • Substitutability
    • Spying
    • Faking the Time
    • Link-time Fake
    • Exercise
    • Debrief
    Keeping Tests Clean

    Module Objective: Tests have many valuable uses. One overlooked value of tests is that they are documentation. Tests provide an executable specification of the code under test. This document shows how the code is supposed to be used and how it is supposed to work. This document is unambiguous; it's code! This document warns you whenever the code differs from the specification. To get the most value from tests as documentation, tests must be written to be read and understood.

    • Tests as Detailed Documentation
    • Four-Phase Test Pattern
    • Given, When, Then
    • Arrange, Act Assert
    • Test Smells
    • Duplication in Tests
    Test-Doubles

    Module Objectives: There is more to test-stubs than the Spy and the Fake. We'll look at an overview of Test-Doubles and when to use them.

    • Taxonomy of Test-Doubles
    • Choosing Real or Test-Double
    Test-Driving With Mock Objects

    Module Objective: Mocking is an important tool for checking that the code under test is interacting properly with its dependencies.

    • The Problem Solved by Mock Objects
    • Specifying and Satisfying Expectations
    • Exercise
    • Debrief
    Refactoring -- Overview

    Module Objective: As requirements and users' needs change, code must change. Design is so important, we don't just do design once at the beginning of the development effort. Design is a continuous process. We accept that changing design is dangerous, and the tests created by the test-driven developer provide a safety-net to lock in code behavior as your product design evolves.

    Refactoring (changing the structure of code, without changing its behavior) is a step in the TDD microcycle used when we need to clean up a mess. We'll also refactor code so that a new feature can be dropped in. This module provides and overview of the mindset and the critical skills needed to evolve designs for a long useful life.
    • Refactoring Defined
    • Critical to a Healthy Business
    • Critical Skills
    • Code Smells
    • Envisioning
    • Transforming
    • TDD's Positive Influence on Design

    For more depth in design and refactoring, you can follow our TDD course with SOLID Design and Refactoring for C++

    Working with Legacy Code -- Overview

    Module Objective: Now we face the reality that we have code that was not created with TDD. We've seen how TDD can help guide creating tested, modular and loosely coupled software. The reality: our code has problems. We don't have time to stop all feature development and retrofit our code base with tests. We'll look at the pragmatic approach to incrementally improving your valuable code base.

    • Legacy Code Mindset
    • The Cost of Doing Business
    • Where and How to Add Test and Refactor
    • Boy Scout Rule -- leave the campsite better than you found it
    • Incremental Improvement
    • Legacy Change Algorithm
    • Crash to Pass Algorithm
  • Wrap up Discussion
  • Optional Workshop for your Product Begins for on-site courses.

This course will get you and your team well on the way to applying TDD in your C++ development efforts.