Three collected thoughts on the use of code coverage as a quality metric.
Incentives with negative consequences are called perverse incentives; asking developers to reach a particular code coverage goal is clearly a perverse incentive.
What are possible negative consequences of setting a specific code coverage as a target?
Sufficiency of testing is much more complicated attribute than coverage can answer. I would say you are doing enough testing if the following is true:
- You rarely get bugs that escape into production, and
- You are rarely hesitant to change some code for fear it will cause production bugs.
Martin Fowler, bliki, 2012
Are you doing enough testing?
If a part of your test suite is weak in a way that coverage can detect, it’s likely also weak in a way coverage can’t detect.
Brian Marick, from bliki, 2012
Can you give some examples of ways your suite can be weak which code coverage can not detect?
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