Martin Fowler

Integration tests determine if independently developed units of software work correctly when they are connected to each other. The term has become blurred even by the diffuse standards of the software industry, so I’ve been wary of using it in my writing. In particular, many people assume integration tests are necessarily broad in scope, while they can be more effectively done with a narrower scope.

As often with these things, it’s best to start with a bit of history. When I first learned about integration testing, it was in the 1980’s and the waterfall was the dominant influence of software development thinking. In a larger project, we would have a design phase that would specify the interface and behavior of the various modules in the system. Modules would then be assigned to developers to program. It was not unusual for one programmer to be responsible for a single module, but

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