One of the most popular open source application for .Net developers is NUnit.

 

With the next release of VS2005 and VSTS, the new IDE has integrated unit test support, with a lot of new functionality over NUnit.

 

However there are some basic features that VSTS does not implement.

 

1) Assert.AreEqual (string expected, string actual) does not inform at which char differs 

 

More than 80% of unit tests involve some kind of string comparison, when the strings defer NUnit told you the first different char in the string. However VSTS just say: "Strings defer". Suppose you are comparing a big string (more that 10000chars). How should I discover the differences?

 

I thought this "simple" feature will be added to final version. Sadly I've read today this will be postponed to V2

 

(Bug opened by ragc http://blogs.clearscreen.com/ragc/archive/2005/08/25/2394.aspx)

 

 

 

 The most natural way to organize your test suite is based in a simple schema, a tree based on Namespace/Namespace/TestClass/TestMethod.

 

VSTS will offer a lot of new ways to define hierarchies to organize your tests, but you will have to spend some time organizing, because the default view is a flat view of all the test methods.

 

This feature will also be postponed for next version: http://lab.msdn.microsoft.com/productfeedback/viewfeedback.aspx?feedbackid=d4b0397b-1fdb-4954-af24-20b5461157a3

 

3) TestResults View 

 

When you have a big test suite, say more than 300 tests, you need a quick view of the results.

NUnit bubble exceptions and failures to the parent node (Namespace) so it is very easy to find namepsaces (family of tests) with broken test results.

 

With VSTS we have two problems, first of all we don't have a TestResults view with a comprehensive summary of the test suite run. The second is the mechanism to inspect test results, you have to open a new VS sub-window to read every failure (unsable when you want to know what's going on when a small number of tests have failed)

 

 

I would like to start using VSTS as soon as possible, however I think this three features are a MUST HAVE, so I would like to know if you have better workarounds than those described in the MS-ProdFeedbackCenter.

 

Or maybe you know  some AddIns, or VS PowerToys to avoid the lack of usability of VS UnitTesting V1.