Andreas Raab wrote:

>
>> If you have a language and a system which requires unit tests,
>> that could be as good as better documentation via types.  However,
>> as long as unit tests are voluntary, they don't really help.
>
> Good point. Which also relates to the point Gilad was making about
> optional type annotations being used or not. In the end its a management
> issue.
Unit tests could be understood as
- examples with
- method calls
- and assertions.

How about a "strong" class browser,
which makes sure, that we
- always have a reproducable example of the current class,
- initialized so that this method could be run
   (all variables one needs are initialized)
- and (maybe even optional) an assertion holds afterwards.

Otherwise the method won't compile.

The tool I have in mind could be understood as a mixture of
a debugger and a class browser and could be compared
to Peter van Rooijen's
	http://www.esug.org/summerschools/2001_Essen/presentations/EnsuDemo/index.
htm,
though I am thinking more of an "example" than of a test driven 
development.
Tests are then just the insertion of assertions.

(Certainly we always have our old "week" class browsers...)

Opinions?

Markus