Drills vs Unit Test

Drills and Unit Tests are typically different things entirely.

• Testing humans is not something that Unit Tests are typically used for.
• Training humans is something that Unit Tests are a natural fit, for. Because Unit Tests are designed to be almost rigid in what they do.

How Does It Work?

First, what are Unit Tests? You will learn more about the more typical usage of Unit Tests when you do the Unit 11 and Assignment 7.

The way these drills work is by forcing you to complete Unit Test code.

Adapting Unit Testing to drills makes use of JUnit's relative inflexibility to force you to think through an answer in terms of what it takes to complete a specific task. JUnit, in this case, is the tool that keeps you on the straight and narrow path.

A Double Win?

Yes, there is a double win by using JUnit, or Unit Testing, as a tool for forcing you through drills.

The most valuable coders in every field are quite often the coders that make regression tested code a natural skill. But learning to get past the tedious nature of writing Unit Tests can take a few days, just to get in the rhythm of it. More experienced coders never make it through this burn-in period. It's just too tedious.

So spending your earliest Java days in deep in the bowels of Unit Testing will make you a much more useful developer - both to yourself, and to your employer!