We need a unit testing framework!

• Testing without a framework is difficult to reproduce

  Speaker's notes:	Testing without a framework is often ad hoc. The tests may not be expressed in code at all. If they are, they are often not written in a way that they can be run again in the future. If they are, the way they are written and reproduced may be different for each unit. If they are consistent, then congratulations, you've written your own framework. :-)

• Reproducible tests that don't use a standard framework may be more difficult for other developers to understand.

  Speaker's notes:	For example, the unittest (PyUnit) module implements a unit testing framework that is already implemented and used in many other programming languages. Even if a developer hasn't used the Python version of this framework, he may be familiar with it from another programming language.

• A unit testing framework provides
  • A mechanism to organize and group multiple tests
  • A simple way to invoke tests
  • Clear indication of which tests passed/failed
  • A standard way to write tests and specify expected results.

    Speaker's notes:	Of course, we still have to write the test code and specify the expected results. Even with a framework, that task can be challenging. Thus, you probably don't want to combine the challenge of writing tests with the difficulty of creating your own testing framework.