Welcome to today’s podcast, where we delve into the fascinating world of snapshot testing. Let’s explore how this technique can enhance your testing workflow.

Snapshot testing is simple yet powerful. As the author puts it, “If I need to test something, I write a property/fuzz/randomized test. If I can’t fuzz, I write a snapshot test.” This approach allows you to convert a test's outcome into a textual representation, which can be automatically compared with expected values.

The author shares a personal revelation about underusing snapshot tests in their coding practices. In an example of creating a permutation function, they initially relied on simple assertion checks. However, this led to cumbersome debugging processes. “Too many context switches,” they noted, realizing the inefficiencies in their method.

Switching to snapshot testing streamlined their workflow. By encapsulating the results directly in the code, they found, “the failures are kept ‘live’ whenever you change the code and re-run the test,” making debugging much more intuitive.

In summary, even if you don’t expect your requirements to change, snapshot tests dramatically improve your development speed and feedback loop, providing a repeatable REPL experience. That’s all for today—join us next time for more insights on coding and testing!
Link to Article