Property Based Testing vs Manual Testing

Developers should learn Property Based Testing when building robust, high-quality software, especially in domains like data processing, financial systems, or compilers where correctness is critical meets developers should learn manual testing to gain a user-centric perspective on software quality, catch edge cases early in development, and perform exploratory testing where automation is impractical. Here's our take.

Property Based Testing

Nice Pick

Developers should learn Property Based Testing when building robust, high-quality software, especially in domains like data processing, financial systems, or compilers where correctness is critical

Pros

• It is particularly useful for testing functions with complex input domains, stateful systems, or when you need to ensure invariants hold across many scenarios, as it can reveal subtle bugs and improve test coverage with less manual effort
• Related to: unit-testing, test-driven-development

Cons

• Specific tradeoffs depend on your use case

Manual Testing

Developers should learn manual testing to gain a user-centric perspective on software quality, catch edge cases early in development, and perform exploratory testing where automation is impractical

Pros

• It's particularly valuable for usability testing, ad-hoc bug hunting, and validating new features before investing in automation scripts, helping ensure software meets real-world expectations and reducing post-release issues
• Related to: test-planning, bug-reporting

Cons

• Specific tradeoffs depend on your use case

The Verdict

Use Property Based Testing if: You want it is particularly useful for testing functions with complex input domains, stateful systems, or when you need to ensure invariants hold across many scenarios, as it can reveal subtle bugs and improve test coverage with less manual effort and can live with specific tradeoffs depend on your use case.

Use Manual Testing if: You prioritize it's particularly valuable for usability testing, ad-hoc bug hunting, and validating new features before investing in automation scripts, helping ensure software meets real-world expectations and reducing post-release issues over what Property Based Testing offers.

The Bottom Line

Property Based Testing wins

Developers should learn Property Based Testing when building robust, high-quality software, especially in domains like data processing, financial systems, or compilers where correctness is critical