Post #2649900

I don’t really like property-based testing, insofar as it involves randomized inputs. 1. Randomized tests are inherently flaky. If the code is correct you don’t notice, but if the code has a bug in some edge case, then the tests (by definition) will pass and fail nondeterministically. Flaky tests have just one destination in my judgement: the bin. 2. Picking a realistic input distribution can be as difficult as writing the code you are testing. Sometimes more difficult. It is easy to get false confidence because the marketing says you are testing a “property”, but the implications of the test are in reality not easy to assess. 3. QuickCheck/Quviq does have the whiff of a consultancy grift, to some extent, does it not? Enough said… Let’s be clear: I’m in favour of any method or tool that can empower people to improve the quality of software. But I have not found property based testing to be as useful or applicable as it is often billed to be. I also think there is a lot of potential for proving something correct with a finite number of tests, as in the polynomial testing principle that @pigworker discussed here: https://personal.cis.strath.ac.uk/conor.mcbride/PolyTest.pdf