Square has announced the release of its new “Keep It Functional” (KIF) integration testing framework for iOS. Cool. … Oh, right! Only developers really actually care about this stuff. Let’s talk about why everyone else should be stoked about this.
Integration testing is a development tool used for an “Agile” software development approach, making it easy to add neat stuff to your app VERY quickly and push new features to the end user as they ask for them. Adding features can often break things in other areas of your app, often in areas one never thought to test. That’s where automated testing comes in.
Automated testing is exactly what it sounds like — code that actually runs your app, and makes sure things work, sort of a code exercise tool. Until KIF, the only testing code in iOS SDK was to make sure that the data models and other things only developers care about worked correctly.
KIF allows a developer to write code to directly exercise the user interface, tapping, clicking and typing inside the app much faster than a team of developers with iPhones could ever hope to test new features. Simply put, KIF will make development on Square’s apps quicker, and their user interface non-crashy.
But, it doesn’t end there. Square has released the source code to KIF on GitHub, meaning any old iOS developer can implement it on their apps as well, making their releases quicker, more stable, and more awesome in general.
Yeah, I know. You’re probably still not as excited as I am. The coolest part, in my opinion, is Square releasing this to the public. Any company that contributes to the development world like that is sure to stay around for a while, and just gained a bunch of street cred with every developer nerd like me. VeriFone, eat your heart out.
Article and Image Via: Square
