Jason Swett is the author of the Complete Guide to Rails Testing. We covered Jason's experience with testing while building relatively small Ruby on Rails applications. Our conversation applies to just about any language or framework so don't worry if you aren't familiar with Rails.A few topics covered:- Listen to advice but be aware of its context. Something good for a large project may not apply to a small one- Fast feedback loops help us work quicker and tests are great for this- If you don't involve things like the database in any of your tests your application may not work at all despite your tests passing- You may not need to worry about scaling at the start for smaller or internal applications - Try to break features into the smallest pieces possible so they can be checked in and reviewed quickly- Jason doesn't remember the difference between a stub and a mock because he rarely uses themRelated Links:- Code with Jason- The Complete Guide to Rails Testing- Code With Jason PodcastTranscript:[00:00:00] Jeremy: today I'm talking to Jason Swett, he's the author of the complete guide to rails testing, a frequent trainer and conference speaker. And he's the host of the code with Jason podcast. So Jason, welcome to software sessions. [00:00:13] Jason: Thanks for having me. [00:00:15] Jeremy: from listening to your podcast, I get a sense that the size of the projects you work on they're, they're relatively modest.Like they're not like a super huge thing. There, there may be something that you can fit all within your head. And I was wondering if you could talk a little bit to that first, so that we kind of get where your perspective is and the types of projects you work on are.[00:00:40] Jason: Yeah. Good question. So that is true. Most of my jobs have been at small companies and I think that's probably typical of the typical developer because most businesses in the world are small businesses. You know, there's, there's a whole bunch of small businesses for every large business. And so most of the code bases I've worked on have been not particularly huge.And most of the teams I've worked on have been relatively small And sometimes so small that it's just me. I'm the only person working on the application. I, don't really know any different. So I can't really compare it to working on a larger application. I have worked at, I worked at AT&T so that was a big place, but I was at, AT&T just working on my own solo project so that wasn't a big code base either.So yeah, that's been what my experience has been like.[00:01:36] Jeremy: Yeah. And I, I think that's interesting that you mentioned most people work in that space as well, because that's basically where I fall as well. So when I listened to your podcast and I hear you talking about like, oh, I have a, I have a rails project where I just have a single server and you know, I have a database and rails, and maybe I have nginx in front, maybe redis it's sort of the scale that I'm familiar with versus when I hear podcasts or articles, you know, I'm reading where they're talking about, oh, we have 500 microservices or we have 200 instances of the application.That's, that's not a space that I've, I've worked in. So I, I found it helpful to, to hear, you know, from you on your show that like, Hey, you know, not everybody is working on these gigantic projects.[00:02:28] Jason: Yeah. Yeah. It's not terribly relatable when you hear about those huge projects.And obviously, sometimes, maybe people earlier in their career can get the wrong idea about what's applicable to their situation. I feel like one of the most dangerous kinds of advice is advice that's good advice, but it's good advice for somebody else.And then I've, I've. Been victim of that, where I get some advice and maybe it's genuinely good advice, but it's not good advice for me where I am doing what I'm doing. And so, I apply the advice, but it's not the right thing. And so it doesn't work out for me. So I'm always careful