Re: A few good pints
Even just working with the success paths, if you're building the foundations of a larger application having plenty of unit tests is by far the best way to ensure that it at least works to some degree. You won't catch all the problems that the system will encounter in the real world, but if you don't have the test suite in place, loads more problems will be encountered further down the line. I have no strong opinion whether you write the tests or code first, as long as they are written in close proximity to one another, but unless you have unit tests for most of your logic, you're lining yourself up for unnecessary pain.
Also putting an automated test in to catch bugs once they're identified is a great way of ensuring you don't inadvertently put them back in later. In an ideal world nobody would do that, but it turns out that some things about the world are less than ideal.
Biting the hand that feeds IT
