Testerata 2.0: A Critical Update to Kent Beck's Testing Principles Proposed

Software developer and technical coach Emily B. has initiated a significant discourse on test design, proposing ‘Testerata 2.0’ as an evolution of Kent Beck’s influential 2019 ‘test deciderata’. Beck’s original list of 12 desirable test properties aimed to guide developers in crafting more effective tests. However, Emily B.’s extensive research, involving the examination of approximately 25 lists of desirable test properties from various industry authors, suggests that Beck’s framework is incomplete and potentially conflates properties of individual tests with those of an entire test suite.

Her analysis revealed two standout properties: ‘fast’, which was universally present across all lists reviewed, and ‘predictive’, a characteristic uniquely emphasized by Beck that focuses on the entire test suite’s ability to predict deployment success. This distinction forms the core of her ‘Testerata 2.0’ proposal, which introduces four macro desiderata for optimizing a complete test suite: Fast, Predictive, Low Total Cost of Ownership (TCO), and Support Ongoing Development. Emily B. argues that most individual test properties valued by developers ultimately contribute to one of these four overarching goals, thereby providing a more comprehensive and actionable framework for building robust, cost-effective, and development-supportive test suites. This shift in perspective aims to provide clearer guidance for optimizing the collective impact of testing on the software engineering process.