The Test
Upcoming Course Dates:
- Not currently scheduled
Course Hours:
- 9:30am-5:00pm US Central Time/Chicago
Cost:
- $300
Registration:
Instructor: David Beazley
This a 1-day course from my Advanced Programming with Python course.
Although it can be taken on its own, I recommend pairing this course with the Elevated course which also deals with the practical problem of writing testable software.
Overview
When code meets reality, it is tested--and not necessarily by you. How does it interact with a complex environment? Is the code free of bugs? Can hackers attack it? Is it too complicated? Is it too slow? Does it match a specification?
In this course, we explore a variety of advanced concepts generally related to the problem of writing testable code as well as novel testing approaches. Topics include:
- Structuring code to be testable and fuzzable.
- Decoupling code from I/O.
- Understanding some common attack vectors for Python code.
- Specifying and solving logical specifications.
- Property based testing.
- SAT Solvers.
- Solver-based testing.
It is important to stress that this course is about design concepts and coding strategies, NOT the use of specific testing tools or modules like unittest or pytest. Nor is the course about software engineering methodology such as test-driven development (TDD). We already know that testing is good--this course aims to go beyond that.
Target Audience
This course is for intermediate programmers who would like write better software. Projects are in Python so you should generally be familiar with core Python features like built-in datatypes, functions, iteration, and classes. However, this is not meant to be an "advanced Python" course--the core concepts are applicable to other programming languages.
Instruction Format
The course alternates between live group discussion and individual coding exercises. There are no powerpoint slides. You should expect to spend about 50% of the time coding and thinking.
About the Instructor
This course is taught by David Beazley. David is known in the Python world as the author of the Python Distilled (Addison Wesley) and Python Cookbook, 3rd Edition (O'Reilly Media). He has also given various conference talks including a few infamous bits of live coding.