Testing Basics That Actually Pay Off

Short summary

A practical guide to software testing habits that deliver the most value for the least effort: focus tests on business-critical functions, prefer integration tests over brittle end-to-end tests, and automate execution via CI or pre-commit hooks. The author advocates for readable tests with factory patterns, regression testing for every bug, and keeping the suite fast. Coverage percentage is called out as a vanity metric—what matters is testing the logic that actually hurts when it breaks.

• •Prioritize tests for money-losing or user-impacting functions over utilities
• •Use integration tests for critical flows; avoid excessive end-to-end browser tests
• •Automate via pre-commit hooks or CI; write regression tests for every bug found

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