Question

The code has a runtime dependency which is not available in our development environment (and is available in test and prod). It’s expensive to actually test for the dependency, and I want to test for the environment instead.

if (isDevEnvironment) {
    // fake it
}
else {
    // actually do it
}

Without using appSettings, what code/technique/test would you use to set isDevEnvironment?

Example answers:

• check machine name (partial or full)
• check for running instance of Visual Studio
• check for environment variable

I’m hoping for a test I hadn’t considered.

Answer 1

You should try to not test your environment in the code! That’s why dependency inversion (and then injection) has been invented for.

Draw some inspiration from NewSpeak, where where the complete platform is abstracted in an object and passed as parameter down the chain of method calls.