The Grumpy Programmer's Guide To Testing PHP Applications

Learn how a Grumpy Programmer approaches testing PHP applications, covering both the technical and core skills you need to learn in order to make testing just a thing you do instead of a thing you struggle with.

I feel that testing, as a concept, is hard to explain to beginning programmers: “we are going to write code that is going to make sure your other code works as expected”. The assumption that underlies all this is that you already understand how to write computer programs in your chosen language! This makes it very difficult to teach to beginner or inexperienced programmers. When you combine this with how PHP does not force any particular structure on you, you have an environment where only the folks who are really motivated end up learning about testing.

The Grumpy Programmer’s Guide To Testing PHP Applications is my way to try and provide some help for developers who are looking to become more test-centric and reap the benefits of automated testing and related tooling like static analysis and automation. I believe that by learning the skills (both technical and core) surrounding testing you will be able to write tests using almost any testing framework and almost any PHP application.

The book combines all the material from my previous books, adds new material, and revisits some old topics where my experiences have changed my thoughts. I break the vast topic of testing into smaller chunks, along with providing lots of examples and explanations of how I approach testing applications. Some of the things I cover are:

Test-Driven development

Strategies for Test-After practices

Test refactoring strategies

How PHPUnit itself works

Complementary tools and approaches like static analysis and mutation testing

Learning the core skills you need to get other people testing their code