Monitor performance issues & errors in your code

Validating Python tests with mutation testing

Episode #63, published Thu, Jun 16, 2016, recorded Wed, Jun 15, 2016

Do you think it's a good idea to test your software? Do you write unit tests or other automated verification for code? I think most of us do these days. A key question is how do you know whether your tests sufficiently verify your code? The standard answer is code coverage.

But there is a difference between executing code (which code coverage measures) and truly verifying it.

On this episode, we'll talk with Austin Bingham. He created a mutation testing framework for Python that goes beyond code coverage to actually perform this verification. It's a fresh and powerful idea. I hope you enjoy it!

Links from the show:

Cosmic ray on Github: github.com/sixty-north/cosmic-ray
Cosmic ray on PyPI: pypi.python.org/pypi/cosmic_ray
TinyDB: tinydb.readthedocs.io
TinyDB on Github: github.com/msiemens/tinydb
Austin on Twitter: @austin_bingham
Sixty North: sixty-north.com
The Python Apprentice book:
leanpub.com/python-apprentice
50% off coupon for apprentice book:
leanpub.com/python-apprentice/c/talk-python-to-me
The Python Journeyman book:
leanpub.com/python-journeyman
The Python Master:
leanpub.com/python-master



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Austin Bingham
Austin Bingham
Austin is a founding director of Sixty North, a software consulting, training, and application development company. A native of Texas, in 2008 Austin moved to Stavanger, Norway where he helped develop industry-leading oil reservoir modeling software. Prior to that he worked at National Instruments, at Applied Research Labs developing sonar systems, and at several telecommunications companies. He is an experienced presenter and teacher, and is an active member of the open source community. He’s the founder of Stavanger Software Developers, a social software group in Stavanger. Austin holds a MSc in Computer Engineering from the University of Texas at Austin.
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