Late submission (to be ignored, if program is already full)
Python Testing Basics for Research Code
Format: Workshop (short presentation, hands-on)
Organiser: Tobi Rohrer
Preferred duration: 1.5h
Short description
Automated software testing is a well-established standard in professional software engineering, yet it remains underutilized in a lot of research code. This becomes particularly problematic when research software evolves from “quick and dirty” simulation scripts into reusable frameworks. Without adequate testing, such code is difficult to maintain and trust.
This workshop provides a practical introduction to automated testing in Python, with a focus on scientific and energy-related applications. Focus is on fundamental concepts of testing, including unit tests and higher-level integration or end-to-end tests, as well as strategies for testing more complex workflows such as simulations and optimization problems. While the examples are based on Python, the principles and best practices are transferable to other programming languages.
the workshop involves hands-on exercises: participants will actively write their own tests through guided exercises based on a small simulation framework (see: GitHub - tobirohrer/python-testing-for-research · GitHub). In addition, we will discuss practical best practices for writing maintainable and meaningful tests, with focus to the challenges and needs of research codebases.
Target audience
For researchers working with scientific Python code. It targets a basic to intermediate level: participants with little or no prior experience in automated testing are very welcome, as the workshop provides an introduction to core concepts and practices. At the same time, participants with some existing experience in testing can benefit from practical insights, best practices, and discussions tailored to research codebases.
Requirements
- Participants should bring their Laptops
- …and should preconfigure their coding environment to be able to run tests (see GitHub - tobirohrer/python-testing-for-research · GitHub)