Monkey and Machine

Last weekend the `usergroup formally know as the phpGG` organised a TestFest event in The Netherlands as part of the global PHP TestFest 2009 event. On the same day events were also held in Paris (France), Gent (Belgium), Berlin (Germany) and on two locations in the UK (London, Salfort).

We got together in Utrecht to sit down with Pierre Joye from Microsoft to show us the basics of writing tests for PHP. After the short introduction we decided to pick the cURL extension as subject of our test effort. A couple of hours later we found out Paris was also testing this extension. Not a problem because not all tests overlapped and you can't have enough tests :)

This is what the room looked like:

Pierre ran around the room most of the time in an attempt to support everyone in writing tests en provide awnsers to their questions. And I think he did a very good job. From this page I can read we contributed 56 tests with about 15-20 people. Pretty good if you ask me.

I really learned a lot during the event. It certainly helped that Pierre was there to explain some things and get me (and the rest) going. I'll probably continue to write tests to PHP because it's a lot easier than you would think :)

And for you people who didn't attend a TestFest event: it lasts until june 30th. So go write some tests! Here are some resources to get you going:

• http://wiki.php.net/qa/testfest
• http://wiki.php.net/qa/testfesttalk
• http://www.slideshare.net/PHPBelgium/preparation-for-php-test-fest-2009
• http://qa.php.net/write-test.php