singalen | On unit tests in Visual Studio 2008 vs NUnit

Originally published at Fiberglass flowers. You can comment here or there.

My not-so-humble evaluation of VS tests distinctions from NUnit is (in points on -10 to 10 scale).

(-4) To run tests, VS launches an entire process which takes no less then 3 seconds to start. If you’re in “F5 hit breakpoint - Shift-F5″ loop, that’s disgusting. NUnit tests can be run in-process by Resharper or TestDriver.NET;
(-2) GUI that shows where test failed is ugly. You don’t get to failed line on double-click, you first get to test log page. Status and call stack are necessary, but I’d like not to trash my document tabs, I already have enough of them open. You can’t make that kind of windows docked/floating;
(-1) You got a “public TestContext TestContext;” sticking in your code. You’ll need it only when it comes to testing on data, which doesn’t always happen, even in a data-driven application;
(-1) It’s a “not invented here” technology, while NUnit was around for years;

Edit: In a moment of madness, I mixed together coverage profiling and unit testing tools. May God and readers forgive my aberration.

Edit2: If you need a half-page kickstart in unit testing techniques, the next post can help.