When are unit test tools justifiable?
Again, it comes down to cost. The later a defect is found in the product development, the more costly it is to fix (Figure 1 below) — a concept first established in 1975 with the publication of Brooks’ “Mythical Man Month” and proven many times since through various studies. Figure 1: The later a defect is identified, the higher the cost of rectifying it. The automation of any process changes the dynamic of commercial justification. This is especially true of test tools since they make earlier unit test much more feasible. Consequently, modern unit test almost implies the use of such a tool unless only a handful of procedures are involved. The primary function of such unit test tools is to automatically generate the harness code which provides the main and associated calling functions or procedures (generically “procedures”). These facilitate compilation and allow unit testing to take place. The tools not only provide the harness itself, but also statically analyze the source code to p
