Test Automation for Endur/Findur : Part 2 - Beyond Unit Testing

In Endur, automated unit testing is necessary, but not sufficient.  Not by a long way.

In this post I look at the effort/reward pay-off for automated testing and why unit testing and automated system testing have quite different profiles.  If you recognise why, it becomes easy to see why so many attempts to automate Endur testing end in failure, but also provides the clues necessary to make it a success.

Inverse scope creep

Most people's idea of regression testing a trading system is "if the P&L is the same, then we haven't broken anything".

That's not true and it's not good enough.  We introduce the concept of inverse scope creep to explain how this impoverished approach to testing allows functionality to atrophy over time and is literally a waste of money.