Should I demand unit-testing from programmers?

Posted by Morten on Programmers See other posts from Programmers or by Morten
Published on 2012-06-26T11:59:56Z Indexed on 2012/06/26 15:24 UTC
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I work at a place, where we buy a lot of IT-projects. We are currently producing a standard for systems-requirements for the requisition of future projects. In that process, We are discussing whether or not we can demand automated unit testing from our suppliers.

I firmly believe, that proper automated unit-testing is the only way to document the quality and stability of the code. Everyone else seems to think that unit-testing is an optional method that concerns the supplier alone. Thus, we will make no demands of automated unit-testing, continous testing, coverage-reports, inspections of unit-tests or any of the kind. I find this policy extremely frustrating.

Am I totally out of line here?

Please provide me with arguments for any of the oppinions.

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