February 15, 2007 was a very big day for me.
I am in Aliso Viejo, where Quest Software is headquartered. And today, at noon, PST, Quest Code Tester for Oracle 1.5.1 goes "GA", that is, becomes generally available.
In other words, Oracle technologists can now purchase and use the commercial version of the first automated testing tool for PL/SQL programs.
It's a big day, because I have worked very hard for a couple of years now to bring to fruition what was formerly just a vision. That vision was a response to this very hard reality:
We programmers will never have enough time to write all the test code needed to test our programs.
My vision:
To achieve comprehensive testing, we need a tool that will automatically generate the test code, run that test code and automatically verify the results.
In other words, let me focus on writing my programs. Let me simply describe the tests I need and then let someone else / something else do the "heavy lifting." Ah, that sounds sweet.
And the reality:
Quest Code Tester for Oracle 1.5
If you write PL/SQL code, if you manage a team of PL/SQL developers, you owe it to yourself to download the trial version and check out Quest Code Tester. I am convinced it will completely revolutionize how you test your code.
Lots of people have told me they really like my books and have learned a lot from me. That makes me happy. But I am convinced that in years to come, I will be remembered most not as the author of those books, but as the creator of Quest Code Tester. That's how excited I am about this tool.
Some other PL/SQL news that makes me feel good: I got an email from a developer complaining that registration for OPP2007, our two-day conference on PL/SQL, was closed. After a few calls and some hard work by the conference organizers, we opened registration again, but it sure is nice to know that we have so many people wanting to attend this intensive training experience. If you are doing PL/SQL programming, please check out the conference, and see if you can attend.
5 comments:
Very nice install. Will test this out. Was able to leave the database blank and login via Oracle Bequeath NT Protocol. Simple, but nice feature.
Grrr... I can't start the Application unless and until I have the database configured. Argh, I hate applications that leave one and only one path for me to follow. I can't just run the app disconnected from a database? OK, so maybe most of the features wouldn't work, but the app shouldn't go away because I can't get to a installed database.
I would like to date for a bit before we start cohabitating in a schema.
There are other apps I've just given up on at this point but I'm excited that this may be useful.
Skipjacker, I can understand your frustration. I guess it could be useful to allow you to skip the backend install and simply let it run in "demo" mode with prebuilt elements that are hard-coded into the app.
But surely you have an Oracle backend running somewhere that you can use?
In the meantime, check out the video library, available through http://unittest.inside.quest.com/index.jspa . That should give you a sense of the product.
I looked at a couple of video tutorials and the product looks impressive. This product has been needed for a long time.
We have been involved with PL/SQL development for some time and had to put in a lot of effort to unit test our code. We have a continous integration environment for our java code and ended up tailoring it to use JUnit and DBUnit to test our PL/SQL code.
I have a couple of questions about the product. (Let me know if I should read the documentation).
1. Does it provide fixtures to setup test data?
2. How are the tests stored? Can I version control using standard tools like subversion?
3. Can I integrate the tests to run in a continous integration environment like Cruise Control (similar to JUnit)?
Dinesh
http://www.boxtone.com
Some responses to Dinish:
1. Does it provide fixtures to setup test data?
>> We offer one option to create a local copy of your table before running the code, but otherwise you still must write this code yourself. We will add more of this sort of thing in the future. Oh, we also offer the Test Data Manager, so you can create domain-specific test data from which to drive tests.
2. How are the tests stored? Can I version control using standard tools like subversion?
>> Tests are stored in Oracle tables. You can export the test definition to file and VC this. You can also VC the generated test code along with the program it is testing.
3. Can I integrate the tests to run in a continous integration environment like Cruise Control (similar to JUnit)?
>> Absolutely. You simply call the appropriate backend PL/SQL API programs to run your tests. The code required is defined in the Help doc.
Hope that was helpful. Excellent questions!
SF
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