Unit tests in the tutorial

[robertbasic]

Hello.

I've noticed last night that there is a section, or, rather sections, about unit testing in the ZF2 tutorial. This is indeed awesome, but! Seems to me that the unit tests are trying to be TDD-ish, but will instead just confuse newcomers trying to learn ZF2. Several reasons.

• The Unit Testing section is the first http://zf2.readthedocs.org/en/latest/user-guide/unit-testing.html. The problem with this being first is that it speaks about modules, ViewModels, and other things that the developer knows nothing about (yet).
• It uses PHPUnit 3.5.15 as shown in the example outputs, but this should be the PHPUnit version we use to actually test ZF2 itself (which is 3.6.x I think).
• The next problem can be seen on the Routing and controllers section http://zf2.readthedocs.org/en/latest/user-guide/routing-and-controllers.html. The code itself are just 4 empty actions (index, add, edit, delete), but the tests are testing these 4 actions that they return a ViewModel, about which the developer still doesn't know anything about. And these tests PASS where it's obvious that they should fail.

This 3rd problem is the biggest one as this will confuse new developers the most: "How come my tests fail when they pass in the tutorial? What am I doing wrong?! ARGH!!"

I really do welcome these unit test examples in the tutorial, but I feel they should be either full-blown TDD tests, covering everything (including unit tests with mocks for TableGateways and Forms), first shown how they fail and then we fix and then they pass, or the entire Unit Testing section should be moved last (that is, before the Conclusion section), and everything about unit testing should be here, and here only.

I, personally, vote for the latter - a Unit testing section at the end. Why? Because the developer came to learn about ZF2, and intermixed tests all over the place would just create confusion and would make things more difficult for newcomers.

Thoughts?

[froschdesign]

I, personally, vote for the latter - a Unit testing section at the end.

+1

[localheinz]

I agree with @robertbasic and @froschdesign - a unit testing section should be provided at the end.

The last thing I worry about when reading the documentation and trying to understand what's going on is tests. If the tests could add value to the documentation (if they are well documented themselves and if they show how components should be used), then that's fine. But at the moment I find them rather confusing. Instead of providing tests, please improve the documentation!

Closing the referenced issue #480.

[elvan]

the entire Unit Testing section should be moved last

+1
Or, move it to a new dedicated section, perhaps underneath Learning Zend Framework 2 tutorial.

Unfortunately, while the unit testing is in the documentation, the test code for the example Album app is still empty.

[marc-mabe]

In my opinion it would be better having a topic Contribute to Zend Framework 2 and let unit testing one of the children,

[robertbasic]

@marc-mabe this is about unit testing zf2 applications, not zf2 itself. It has nothing to do with contributing to zf2, imo.

[froschdesign]

My opinion: remove all unit tests from the quick start tutorial!

The quick start tutorials is for beginner and newcomers and they want/need a simple entry into the framework. At the moment the quick start tutorial - the first touch with the framework - is a pain!

[robertbasic]

Move it to the "Learning Zend Framework 2" section http://zf2.readthedocs.org/en/latest/#learningzendframework I think there's no better place for it.

[Ore4444]

It's very important that new developers understand the importance of unit testing and how to set it up within ZF2. We just need to make sure that it doesn't get in the way of learning the frameworks core concepts. Thus, instead of moving it out of the tutorial, I would just put it at the very end.

[Maks3w]

I agree with to remove the tests from the quick start and make the advanced tutorial with this kind of things

[robertbasic]

If no one beats me to it, I'll try to do it over the weekend.

[robertbasic]

Pull request for this one is sent #671