Changes
do automated builds
Writing tests is one of the easiest ways that a newbie can come along to a project and instantly contribute in a meaningful way. But if you’re constantly calling global variables, depending on live database connections and not providing a way to mock them up, or throwing fatal errors if every subsystem isn’t present no matter the context, then it’s going to be hard to write tests. So hard, in fact, that not only will you not do it, but neither will anyone else.
Having a test suite is essential to growing your developer code base beyond the 1 or 2 person small software development teams found in libraries. A test suite allows your software to grow collaboratively with confidence over time. An automated build application that pulls changes as they are checked in, and runs the test suite is an extremely helpeful safety net as development kicks into high gear.