Being fairly new to unit testing, I find myself discovering all kinds of interesting challenges when trying to test my data access layer (DAL).  I had decided early on in one of my projects (with the tutelage of my supervisor and mentor) to take on the task of writing my DAL from scratch.  Disclaimer:  I realize that data access is a problem that has already been solved (many times over), this was more of a learning exercise for me. Part of my DAL deals with the IDbCommand.CreateParameter() method.  I ran into a problem where I wanted each...

I recently finished reading The Art of Unit Testing by Roy Osherove (published by Manning). As the title implies, this book covers the topic of unit testing, which is still a mystery for a lot of developers. Unfortunately, I think that many believe unit testing to be a shadowy art that seems hard to grok, and even harder to practice.  The truth is, it’s not as hard as you might think, and once you understand what unit testing truly is, you may find yourself enjoying writing your unit tests as much as your production code. The examples in...