The company I work for, Pillar Technology, recently created this really slick tool called Verde to generate unit tests for legacy code. I have to admit at first I was very skeptical as I had seen some pretty ugly legacy code out there. To make sure we’re on the same page here I personally define “Legacy Code” just as Michael Feathers does in his article “Working Effectively with Legacy Code” as code that has a lack of tests around it. So by this definition code that was written even last week could conceivably be considered “Legacy” if there is a lack of tests.
So to get to the point, now that I’ve had some time to look at the tool, I’m rather pleasantly surprised. I’ve seen this tool in action, and generate a bunch of integration tests for a service layer for an application, which will allow you to refactor confidently. Jump over to the website (http://frogyourcode.com) and check it out.
