If your unit test code "smells" does it really matter?

Posted by Buttons840 on Programmers See other posts from Programmers or by Buttons840
Published on 2011-05-18T19:41:30Z Indexed on 2011/06/23 16:31 UTC
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unit-testing

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code-quality

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code-smell

Usually I just throw my unit tests together using copy and paste and all kind of other bad practices. The unit tests usually end up looking quite ugly, they're full of "code smell," but does this really matter? I always tell myself as long as the "real" code is "good" that's all that matters. Plus, unit testing usually requires various "smelly hacks" like stubbing functions.

How concerned should I be over poorly designed ("smelly") unit tests?

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