More Testing: Mocking is a Code Smell article is way too advanced

[vespucchi]

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I'm giving you my point of view as a beginner. This article is way too advanced, terminology used is nowhere to be found in previous lessons which wouldn't be a problem if it was only few terms and not whole (very long) article. Reading it feels like opening a book in the middle of it with no context provided and trying to understand what's going on. Also the jump from FunFunFunctions mock video to this article is night and day difference. I also struggled with some previous lessons but always knew where I was lacking so it was relatively easy to google it. This lesson I don't even know where to start, finding a course on this topic is my only option seems like. I wonder if others struggle as well or is it just me, feel free to discuss.

Path

Node / JS

Lesson Url

https://www.theodinproject.com/lessons/node-path-javascript-more-testing

(Optional) Discord Name

vespucci

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[incandesc3nce]

Agreed, the article felt like a really hard read and overly complicated for those not yet familiar with React and Redux. But I think the article should stay, it gives some insight and tries to teach good coding techniques. Simply stating "glance through the article" and saying "it will have unknown terminology, but it is a good read" would be enough in my opinion. Maybe place it into additional resources .

[MaoShizhong]

I would not be opposed to moving the article in question to Additional Resources if someone can find a replacement that goes through the same core concepts, but presents them in a way that's more in line with the flow of the assignments. So there's less of a night/day jump in complexity, while retaining the core concepts discussed.

[MaoShizhong]

@TheOdinProject/javascript Any differing/additional thoughts on the above? Whether the assignment step itself could be moved to the AR section, or whether we only want to do so if we can get a replacement resource that goes through the same general concept in a more lesson-appropriate manner, or otherwise?

[JackBogart]

Bumping this up as I just made an issue on this, missed this when I went through the active issues! My original write up was in #28735 .

To summarize my points were:

• This article is way too advanced
• The idea it's trying to convey isn't that complicated and could maybe be added to the lesson rather than being replaced by a different resource
• That idea being (rough summary): "too many mocks can be a sign of code smell as everything might be tightly coupled if you need to mock often"

From doing a little research it seems like this isn't an uncommon concern. If you go in the discord and search Mocking is a Code Smell, you get many users bringing up valid concerns about the difficulty of this article.

I think a really good quote from the article that summarizes the main ideas from the article that the lesson wants to teach users is: 'Can the unit be tested without mocking dependencies? If it can’t, it’s tightly coupled to the mocked dependencies.'.