Db Unit Testing: Intro

One of the most exciting features of DbPro (Visual Studio Team Edition for Database Professionals) is the unit test - see here for a really good intro from Jamie Lafen. The reason I think this is so exciting is because it brings the world of database development into the same arena as the rest of software development on the microsoft platform; for so long the two disciplines have been miles apart with development techniques and procedures being completely different.

But with the introduction of the database project and also with the database unit test we can now start to treat database development the same way we treat software development. Both should be adhering to the same methodology and striving to achieve the same goals of quality, robustness and agility.

Well, these are all just words and what I really want to say is that I want to be able to treat a stored procedure or function with the same respect that I would a method or interface in C#. I want to have a test rig that I can attach to a database nightly build that can give me the confidence that the T-SQL I have added does not invalidate any of the existing schema and that my code still works, end-to-end. And most importantly, I want this to happen automatically each night without me having to sit for ages executing test scripts that only work for me.

So, my adventures into TDDD begins here.