Skip to content
Oct 15 2009 / alecmce

Isometric Fun – Cuboids

Test Driven Development is a wonderful thing. When I am calm, not under the pressure of deadlines and working most effectively, I would argue that TDD is the optimal way of working. Unfortunately, UI testing does not sit easily within TDD. To really check that graphical code works, you need to see it.

I was working back through isometry logic that I did almost a year ago, revisiting and writing fresh libraries for a project that my company is working on. I found myself needing to visually test that rendering cuboids in isometric space works exactly as I expect it to. It’s one thing for ASUnit to ‘run green’ in the test cases that I could pre-calculate, and quite another to see all these lovely cuboids drawn out. These tests are useful additions to the suite of work, and I thought it was fun enough to share.

Filed under animation, as3, tdd
  • http://www.jacksondunstan.com/ Jackson Dunstan

    This remains my biggest problem with TDD. In my line of work I am constantly dealing with the very cases that TDD is least helpful with: graphics, sound, and UIs. I imagine this is common among Flash programmers, especially those programming games. TDD can help in the data-only areas of the game, but is of little use when you try to use it with something like your isometric engine. This usually results in a manual test, like yours, rather than something automated, as in TDD.

  • http://www.jacksondunstan.com Jackson Dunstan

    This remains my biggest problem with TDD. In my line of work I am constantly dealing with the very cases that TDD is least helpful with: graphics, sound, and UIs. I imagine this is common among Flash programmers, especially those programming games. TDD can help in the data-only areas of the game, but is of little use when you try to use it with something like your isometric engine. This usually results in a manual test, like yours, rather than something automated, as in TDD.

  • Pingback: Not-Isometric Fun – Cuboids at AlecMcE.com