---
title: "Test Review #1 - NerdDinner"
url: "https://osherove.com/blog/2009/3/20/test-review-1-nerddinner.md"
canonical: "https://osherove.com/blog/2009/3/20/test-review-1-nerddinner.html"
published: "2009-03-20T05:45:53"
updated: "2009-03-20T05:45:53"
tags: [".NET", "Agile", "Art Of Unit Testing", "TestReview", "Unit Testing"]
author: "Roy Osherove"
description: "I’ve decided to start doing some test reviews of tests that I see in the wild. I figured it’s the best way to show people what I mean when I say they do not have readable, maintainable or trustworthy tests. The first…"
usage: "Licensed under CC BY 4.0 — reuse, quote and adapt with attribution (Roy Osherove, link to the original page)."
license: "https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/"
---

# Test Review \#1 - NerdDinner

By Roy Osherove March 20, 2009 In [.NET](https://osherove.com/blog/category/net), [Agile](https://osherove.com/blog/category/agile), [Art Of Unit Testing](https://osherove.com/blog/category/art-of-unit-testing), [TestReview](https://osherove.com/blog/category/testreview), [Unit Testing](https://osherove.com/blog/category/unit-testing)

**Historical article** · Originally published March 20, 2009; technical details may be outdated.

I’ve decided to start doing some test reviews of tests that I see in the wild. I figured it’s the best way to show people what I mean when I say they do not have readable, maintainable or trustworthy tests.

The first episode is the review of the tests from the [NerdDinner MVC source code](http://nerddinner.codeplex.com/). It’s 30 minutes long. and it was shot at 2AM, so I’m quite cranky. But the tests sure don’t try to ease my mind, and only make me crankier.

If you have tests you’d like me to review send an email to \[email removed\] with the subject “Test Review \[project name\]”

TestReviewNerdDinner.flv

**problems that are dealt with in this video:**

- Naming conventions
- Magic strings in tests
- Hard coded values in hand written stubs
- Magic assertions (expecting a value that no one understand why it should be that value)
- Lack of tests

## More in .NET

[All posts in .NET](https://osherove.com/blog/category/net)

- Mar 22, 2009

    ### [Test Review #3 – Unity](https://osherove.com/blog/2009/3/23/test-review-3-unity.html)

- Mar 21, 2009

    ### [Test Review #2 – ASP.NET MVC Unit Tests](https://osherove.com/blog/2009/3/21/test-review-2-aspnet-mvc-unit-tests.html)

- Mar 17, 2009

    ### [ALT.NET Israel – Meeting II 2d and 3rd of April](https://osherove.com/blog/2009/3/17/altnet-israel-meeting-ii-2d-and-3rd-of-april.html)

- Mar 17, 2009

    ### [API design values and decision matrix](https://osherove.com/blog/2009/3/17/api-design-values-and-decision-matrix.html)


---

## About the author

**Roy Osherove**: Senior Solutions Architect at AWS working on AI for production and AI-driven development; author of The Art of Unit Testing and Elastic Leadership, with about 20 years of consulting and training on unit testing, TDD, team leadership and continuous delivery.

### Sites

- [RobotPaper](https://robotpaper.ai/): This blog: AI patterns and anti-patterns, AI and coding agents, and engineering leadership.
- [osherove.com](https://osherove.com): Roy's personal site. Author of The Art of Unit Testing and Elastic Leadership; consulting and training on unit testing, TDD, team leadership and continuous delivery, plus about 20 years of blog posts.
- [The Art of Unit Testing](https://www.artofunittesting.com): The Art of Unit Testing, 3rd Edition (Manning): readable, maintainable, trustworthy unit tests, plus TDD workshops in C#, JavaScript, Java and Kotlin.
- [5whys.com](https://www.5whys.com): Roy's writing on software team leadership: self-organizing teams, surviving chaos, learning mode and the Elastic Leadership model.
- [Pipeline Driven](https://pipelinedriven.org): Continuous delivery and DevOps practices: build patterns, pipeline-friendly testing, DevOps metrics and enterprise DevOps.
- [Elastic Leadership](https://www.elasticleadership.com): Elastic Leadership, Roy's framework for software team leaders (survival, learning and self-organizing modes).

### Social

- X: https://x.com/royosherove
- LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/osherove/

### Contact

- Contact form: https://forms.gle/jQSx5KoXvrVA1JCK7

### License

Licensed under CC BY 4.0 — reuse, quote and adapt with attribution (Roy Osherove, link to the original page). License: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/