UnitKit's Fate
Back in March I took a first look at unit testing
in Objective-C and a few of the options available. I chose UnitKit. Well, with the release of
XCode 2.1, Apple not only adds support for Intel processors, but also integrates
a unit testing framework, OCUnit (XCode's
release notes can be found here).
While this will expand the number of developers who embrace unit testing and
improve software quality on the Mac platform, it does call into question the
future of alternative testing frameworks like UnitKit...
UnitKit's developer, James Duncan Davidson,
thinks so, too. In his blog and
on the UnitKit mailing list, Davidson asked users whether he should give it up,
press on with UnitKit, or work to improve OCUnit with some of UnitKit's
features. Davidson said he was leaning toward the latter. The responses, both on
his blog and on the mailing list, were almost unanimous in
agreement.
A few hours ago, Davidson announced to the UnitKit list his decision to help out on OCUnit.
In essence Davidson chose cooperation rather than competition, with the goal of improving unit testing for the greatest number of developers --- those who will use whatever framework XCode provides. This, to me, is a fine example of what happens when software is written with a motive other than profit (or ego, for that matter). I'm not knocking the commercial software development that feeds my family, but I am impressed with the open source ethic. It works, and it benefits everyone.
Anyway, time to cozy up to OCUnit. To get started, I'm going to read through Test Driving Your Code with OCUnit on Apple's site and Unit Testing with OCUnit on O'Reilly's macdevcenter.com.
Or maybe that'll wait. I'm itching to try writing a Dashboard widget...
A few hours ago, Davidson announced to the UnitKit list his decision to help out on OCUnit.
In essence Davidson chose cooperation rather than competition, with the goal of improving unit testing for the greatest number of developers --- those who will use whatever framework XCode provides. This, to me, is a fine example of what happens when software is written with a motive other than profit (or ego, for that matter). I'm not knocking the commercial software development that feeds my family, but I am impressed with the open source ethic. It works, and it benefits everyone.
Anyway, time to cozy up to OCUnit. To get started, I'm going to read through Test Driving Your Code with OCUnit on Apple's site and Unit Testing with OCUnit on O'Reilly's macdevcenter.com.
Or maybe that'll wait. I'm itching to try writing a Dashboard widget...
Posted: Sat - June 11, 2005 at 10:52 PM
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