Having worked as a software test (automation) consultant on various development environments for the last five years, and having (very) recently made a move to the world of Mendix, I can't help to get the (surprising) idea that very few Mendix developers actively use unit tests. This could hardly be more different than what I have experienced in the projects I've previously worked on, where unit testing was a given. This appears to be completely different in a Mendix environment. I know there is a module in the App store for unit testing, but why is it not common practice? Or is it, and am I misinformed?
Of course, when you develop in Mendix, you use a lot of standard building blocks, of which you could say that they don't have to be tested separately. I've also learned that the Mendix modeler itself covers a lot of possible problems that can arise in microflows, where it checks for inconsistencies and incomplete (decision) paths. But that seemingly only covers part of the technical errors that can arise, not the functional ones. Microflows may contain logic, which in my experience would make them prime candidates for unit tests. If it is possible to isolate them from the context (no dependencies or only mocked ones), that is, otherwise it wouldn’t qualify as a unit test at all.
Who can enlighten me on this matter? Why are unit tests so scarcely used in Mendix, or aren't they? Why does this situation differ so much from 'traditional' development environments (Java, .Net, etc.)?
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The habit of unit testing in a Mendix environment
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