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From: Lawrence D'Oliveiro <ldo@geek-central.gen.new_zealand>
Newsgroups: comp.lang.java.programmer
Subject: Re: tools for programming applets
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Date: Mon, 23 May 2011 12:34:20 +1200
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In message <irb1aj$5qq$1@dont-email.me>,  wrote:

> I'd like to turn that around on you and ask you what development
> environments you've used that didn't require you to build a test harness
> before, during and after software development?

When I build a major system, I like to build in the ability to run it in 
“test mode”. This is a simple boolean flag which causes the code to read its 
configuration file from a different directory, open the test database 
instead of the production one, listen on a different port from the 
production one, generate URLs linking to test areas of the website instead 
of production areas, and so on.

I even wrote a custom Python installation script, which looks for a line 
like this

    test_mode = True/False

and edits it to have the right value depending where the script is going to 
be installed.

Then I can run test and production systems side by side on the same server, 
guaranteeing identical configurations for both. I can kill and restart test 
processes without affecting anything important. I can selectively copy 
across data from the production database to the test one. And once I’m 
satisfied it’s up to production quality, it’s easy enough to arrange a time 
with the users to upgrade the production system.