Stubs

A stub is a temporary replacement piece of code that takes the place of a unit that has yet to be written (or made available by another developer). The implementation of the stub can be simple or somewhat complex, as conditions require. For instance, either it can be hard-coded to return a set value, or it can perform any of the following:

• Provide a validation of the input parameters.
  
  
• Provide a realistic delay so as not to convey a false impression that your new application is lightning-fast.
  
  
• Provide a quick-and-dirty implementation of the intended functionality of the unit that you are substituting. Be careful not to be too quick-and-dirty; otherwise, you’ll waste valuable time debugging throwaway code.

A useful task that you can perform with a stub is to pass the input parameters into the debug window. In most cases, this will merely show you what you expect to see, but it will occasionally throw up a parameter value that you never expected. Although you would have (probably) found this out anyway, you will have immediately been given a visible sign that there is something wrong. While formalized testing is a good method of identifying bugs, so is the commonsense observation process (“that can’t be right…”).