Done well, I believe mocking can be incredibly insightful and readable. I'll admit that doing it well is often less trivial than it sounds! I also see the value in creating objects that are essentially test harnesses, so I'm not necessarily saying I'd never follow your approach. Just wanted to get your thoughts. Thanks for the input!
First of all, I didn't even know that mock was part of unittest now. I thought you still had to install it separately.
Generally, I suspect both will work. Maybe more a matter of taste. I'm generally pessimistic towards mocking unless it's the only way possible. Mocking is a clever but equally nasty hack and the code often becomes hard to read (once it's escaped your short-term memory) and it's so easy to "overmock" and accidentally make everything a mock object that doesn't help you check your sanity.
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Done well, I believe mocking can be incredibly insightful and readable. I'll admit that doing it well is often less trivial than it sounds! I also see the value in creating objects that are essentially test harnesses, so I'm not necessarily saying I'd never follow your approach. Just wanted to get your thoughts. Thanks for the input!
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First of all, I didn't even know that mock was part of unittest now. I thought you still had to install it separately. Generally, I suspect both will work. Maybe more a matter of taste. I'm generally pessimistic towards mocking unless it's the only way possible. Mocking is a clever but equally nasty hack and the code often becomes hard to read (once it's escaped your short-term memory) and it's so easy to "overmock" and accidentally make everything a mock object that doesn't help you check your sanity.