This is a series of posts, following a talk I gave (twice - at Pycon-US 2023 and Pycon-IL 2024), about testing best (and not-so-best) practices.

The talk shares 10 practices that I had bad experience with, along with ways of avoiding them.

Starting with simple (but useful!), and moving on to more complex ideas:

  1. There are no tests (warm up)
  2. Untested tests
  3. The tests are not isolated
  4. No locality of behavior
  5. Unclear language
  6. Testing too many things
  7. Improper test scope
  8. Test doubles everywhere
  9. Slow tests
  10. Wrong priorities

Videos and slide decks from the talks

10 Ways To Shoot Yourself In The Foot With Tests - PyCon-US 2023 (English)

Given at Salt Lake City, Utah. Slides: Slideshare PyCon US 2023


10 Ways To Shoot Yourself In The Foot With Tests - PyCon-IL 2024 (Hebrew)

Slides: Slideshare PyCon IL 2024

(video will be linked when uploaded to youtube)