Infographic: The many flavours of test doubles 🍦

Now I’m no terminology wizard. I can rarely think of good words. However, something that has been bugging me for a while is the terminology surrounding test doubles. It feels like a lot of terms are used interchangeably, which can lead to a lot of confusion when reading other people’s tests.

I think terminology is especially important for tests as they are often copied or heavily referenced by engineers when writing new tests in a codebase, leading to more pervasive issues.

But not only is the terminology important, but use of the correct double.

Enter Julz, an unassuming madlad from Brisbane, Q-L-D. He gave a fantastic talk at work titled: “The many flavours of test doubles” which did an immaculate job of clearing a lot of confusion up for myself and others on the team.

It was so good I wanted to turn it into a quick reference guide by way of an infographic. Enjoy!