Great point. I usually write a really simple integration test that will save something and load it (but not test any validation rules). You’ll run into some of the pain that I mentioned in this post, but there is value in that. This is especially true with LINQ to SQL — you can write LINQ code that does a query and it will compile, but that doesn’t mean that the query will be able to be converted to SQL.

Thanks for the post.
A code example would be good for person like me to understand mocking.

And then, do you change your tests once the db & active directory come into being?
OR
do you continue using mocking and the tests use mock objects?

if you write a reply to this post, copy it to me at my email address.

Thanks :)

There are some good code examples here:
http://aspalliance.com/1400_Beginning_to_Mock_with_Rhino_Mocks_and_MbUnit__Part_1

The point of mocking is not to account for the database or Active Directory not being there, in most cases those things are there when you’re writing the tests. The point is that I don’t necessarily need those external dependencies to be involved in the test because I’m just testing some piece of logic in the code.