Tuesday, September 6, 2011

Tip for making AutoFixture and xUnit.net play nice

Just a quick tip, for making AutoFixture 2.1 play nice with newer xUnit.net versions:

I installed Autofixture via NuGet, which gave me AutoFixture 2.1 and xUnit 1.7, when running my tests they threw this:

System.IO.FileNotFoundException: 
   Could not load file or assembly 
   'Ploeh.AutoFixture, Version=2.1.0.1, Culture=neutral,
   PublicKeyToken=b24654c590009d4f' 
   or one of its dependencies. 
The system cannot find the file specified.


The reason is that the test runner thinks that AutoFixture needs and older version of xUnit (although it doesn't really).
The solution is to put this in the app.config for the test projects:


    1   <runtime>
    2     <assemblyBinding xmlns="urn:schemas-microsoft-com:asm.v1">
    3       <dependentAssembly>
    4         <assemblyIdentity name="xunit.extensions"
    5                           publicKeyToken="8d05b1bb7a6fdb6c"
    6                           culture="neutral"/>
    7         <bindingRedirect oldVersion="1.6.1.1521"
    8                          newVersion="1.7.0.1540"/>
    9       </dependentAssembly>
   10     </assemblyBinding>
   11   </runtime>
   12 

You'll probably have to fix up the newVersion to the exact version you have.

That's it for now.

Monday, September 5, 2011

Upcoming Events

I have couple of events coming up that I thought I'd share here: The Agile Architecture Open Space Conference and an ANUG code camp on enhancing legacy test suites.

Agile Architecture Open Space Conference
On the 29th and 30th of September a couple of colleagues and I are running a small conference under the headline of sustainable architecture in an agile world. It's an open space conference, so there's next to no official program. But there is plenty of room for in-depth discussions and networking. With the line up of attendees so far I think it'll be awesome. There are still a few spaces left, so check it out at http://aaosconf.eventbrite.com/.

Enhancing Legacy Test Suites
On the 19th of November I'll be running a code camp on the subject of enhancing legacy test suites. It'll be a longer, more in-depth and more hands-on version of the workshop on the same subject I did at SC2011. The premise of the code camp is that we see more and more code bases with some automated tests around them, but these tests are often lacking in quality. The tests are sometimes just there to cover somebody's ass, sometimes they are very tightly coupled to the implementation, sometimes they are flaky, and they almost always cover only a fraction of the production code.
At the code camp we'll dive into techniques to improve this situation, and move towards a situation where the test suite is an asset. Where the tests are not a burden to maintain, and where they provide the confidence they should.
I'll start the day by introducing a few techniques, and an example code base with some tests associated. The bulk of the day will be spent applying the techniques to the example code base through a number of iterations with tasks set be me for each one. Should be a lot of hacking fun