Meta programming

• Build systems

  • define a number of dependencies, a number of targets, and rules for going from one to the other.
  • make is one of the most common build systems.
    • Makefile

• Dependency management

  • apt/ RubyGems / PyPi / ...
  • semantic versioning

• Continuous integration systems

  • runs whenever your code changes

  • Tests

    • Test suite: a collective term for all the tests
    • Unit test: a “micro-test” that tests a specific feature in isolation
    • Integration test: a “macro-test” that runs a larger part of the system to check that different feature or components work together.
    • Regression test: a test that implements a particular pattern that previously caused a bug to ensure that the bug does not resurface.
    • Mocking: to replace a function, module, or type with a fake implementation to avoid testing unrelated functionality. For example, you might “mock the network” or “mock the disk”.