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Our required contemplation for the week is to compare and contrast unit tests with end-to-end testing paradigm: Post an entry to your journal contrasting unit testing with end-to-end testing.

Unit tests go with each feature, documenting it and testing hopefully just it and as little other things as possible. Dependencies are mocked, faked and doubled and the unit test can pin the test to the behavior of only the thing it's trying to test. The purpose of unit tests are to not only make sure each feature works but to create a working example use to go with the feature, not only continually verifying the functionality but providing a window into what the expected behavior is if it breaks down. Database interaction is mocked, user interaction is mocked, just the logic in the feature being tested is under focus. The engineer that writes the feature is usually the engineer that writes the unit the test for that feature.

End-to-end tests also provide a window into expected behavior but are not afraid of testing much more than just individual features. They can be much more complex, acting as a robot-user entering data and verifying expected output closer to how an actual computer user might. This triggers actual application behavior, front end to back end, including network traffic, server logic, database functionality, server response, more network traffic, and output at the front end, where end-to-end tests can verify the output as a real user might. These tests are more often written with multiple contributors and do not focus on single features, instead they aim to test the system as a whole, or in more substantial realistic slices, referred to as testing in higher fidelity. There can be tests for these tests and tests they depend on, they can be slower and definitely more likely to be fragile, but they are also more all encompassing. Large tests also serve as documentation for features and show working use cases.

In other news, we are working on a final project proposal, and mine is going to be called ValueBlaster - valuation of things through data science machine learning but showcased through a fancy Node with Express website with fancy graphics and web features. Also soon it will be Arduino projects as well.

The moth, I saved out of some water, and that is his toung - that black loop, it's coming out of his mouth, looping back around, and fluffing out his chest hairs. I'm not kidding, I should have videoed it. His mouth is at the top, and his toung comes out, bends down and then the end flicks around on his chest like he's tickling his chest, presumably to dry it off. I rescued him from some water, stuck him up there and he started doing that, then flew off after drying off.