Practice question · Fill in the blanks
Complete the purpose of a test suite.
Running the tests after every change catches ______ immediately.
Word bank: round-off error · regressions · ill-conditioning · syntax highlighting
Hints
- The word names a bug newly introduced into code that used to work.
- Two of the options are numerical phenomena that no test can abolish.
Show the answer
Running the tests after every change catches regressions immediately.
Why
A regression is a bug introduced by a change, and catching it the moment it appears is what makes the suite worth running. Round-off and conditioning are properties of the mathematics, not defects a test can remove.
Practise Reproducibility and Good Practice
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