Should I change the naming convention for my unit tests?

Question

I currently use a simple convention for my unit tests. If I have a class named \"EmployeeReader\", I create a test class named \"EmployeeReader.Tests. I then create all the test

Answer 1

I've been down the two roads you describe in your question as well as a few other... Your first alternative is pretty straight forward and easy to understand for most people. I personally like the BDD style (your second example) more because it isolates different contexts and groups observations on those contexts. Th only real downside is that it generates more code so starting to do it feels slightly more cumbersome until you see the neat tests. Also if you use inheritance to reuse fixture setup you want a testrunner that outputs the inheritance chain. Consider a class "An_empty_stack" and you want to reuse it so you then do another class: "When_five_is_pushed_on : An_empty_stack" you want that as output and not just "When_five_is_pushed_on". If your testrunner does not support this your tests will contain redundant information like: "When_five_is_pushed_on_empty_stack : An_empty_stack" just to make the output nice.