Are unit tests really used as documentation?
- by stijn
I cannot count the number of times I read statements in the vein of 'unit tests are a very important source of documentation of the code under test'. I do not deny they are true.
But personally I haven't found myself using them as documentation, ever. For the typical frameworks I use, the method declarations document their behaviour and that's all I need. And I assume the unit tests backup everything stated in that documentation, plus likely some more internal stuff, so on one side it duplicates the ducumentation while on the other it might add some more that is irrelevant.
So the question is: when are unit tests used as documentation? When the comments do not cover everything? By developpers extending the source? And what do they expose that can be useful and relevant that the documentation itself cannot expose?
