> (and, usually, anti-unit-testing people are anti-type-safety people, too)
This is the opposite of my experience. Most of the anti-unit testing people I've talked to are very much pro-type people. I wonder if anyone has done any studies that shows what the actual numbers look like.
> Arguing against unit testing is like arguing against type-safety
I disagree with this. Types (at least when they've been built on top of an actual logic) have the benefit of real costs and benefits. You can show what programs you are unable to write and you can show (mathematically) that certain failures won't happen.
Unit tests on the other hand are much more hand wavy. You can show that some refactors seem easier, but you can't prove it without a lot of data that has to be collected on a project by project basis. I'm not saying that I don't want unit tests if I'm doing a non-trivial refactor, but I am saying that that desire is more of an intuition thing. It's not like I can make any proofs around it like I can do with a type system.
This is the opposite of my experience. Most of the anti-unit testing people I've talked to are very much pro-type people. I wonder if anyone has done any studies that shows what the actual numbers look like.
> Arguing against unit testing is like arguing against type-safety
I disagree with this. Types (at least when they've been built on top of an actual logic) have the benefit of real costs and benefits. You can show what programs you are unable to write and you can show (mathematically) that certain failures won't happen.
Unit tests on the other hand are much more hand wavy. You can show that some refactors seem easier, but you can't prove it without a lot of data that has to be collected on a project by project basis. I'm not saying that I don't want unit tests if I'm doing a non-trivial refactor, but I am saying that that desire is more of an intuition thing. It's not like I can make any proofs around it like I can do with a type system.