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Pillar brings test-driven development to legacy Java apps


By Alex Handy
November 25, 2008 — 
When a development team is starting a program from scratch, it is easy for them to implement test-driven development (TDD). Greenfield projects are easy to cover with unit tests because there's no old code to understand: Coders simply write their tests while they write the code.

But legacy Java applications are a different story altogether. If an application is even older than JUnit, it is unlikely that there are unit tests embedded. Gary Gentry's Pillar Technologies is aiming to bring TDD to these legacy applications.

Gentry is the founder and CEO of Pillar, and he said that his many years of running his software development consulting company have proven to him that agile and TDD are true game changers. Now, he and his team of around 100 consultants are hoping to use their new tool, Verde, to push unit tests into code from as far back as Java 1.3.

“Verde is an intelligent recording device that lives inside the VM. It can position people to be successful with TDD. If you just throw them into an agile project and say 'write tests,' and they need to incorporate that into an existing applications, they will be encumbered with baggage that's too heavy to carry,” said Gentry.

Verde is a tool based on aspect-oriented design practices. Gentry said that just about any legacy Java application can be covered with unit tests in around six- to eight-weeks time. After that, Pillar licenses its Verde technology for US$2,500 for five users.

It's not your typical software package, said Gentry. Verde is a powerful tool, according to Gentry, and he suggested that only those who know how to use it should access it. Thus, he sees Verde as a window to a brief consulting engagement. Once developers on a team are taught how it works, they can do it themselves with the licensed version.

But initially, said Gentry, the task of covering ancient Java code is best left to the experts he employs. The idea is to give development teams a leg up on TDD so that they no longer need fear their legacy code. If it's covered with unit tests, there are no more excuses for not touching the old code for fear of breaking it.

“[Verde is not like] Agitar, which tried to do static code analysis and figure out all the various permutations of all the classes in your Java application, then creates JUnit code," said Gentry. "But that's not very helpful. Over half of an application as it is being written isn't being used. As it's being driven by [a] user interface or some sort of a quality scripting language, we insert a recording device inside the JVM.

"We support all the JVMs from 1.3 forward. Think about the ability to create dynamic JUnit tests and characterization tests dynamically at runtime. We can convert that XML stream and then produce JUnit code that produces all the expectations of behavior.”

Gentry said he's done the math on generating test coverage for old code, and that he has priced the Verde services accordingly.

“We've been saying that if you were to do this by hand, it's about 125 to 150 hours per test case ... When using the Verde product, we can bring that down to between $40 and $50 per test case,” said Gentry.

Verde is available now, but typically includes a six- to eight-week consulting and implementation service on top of the aforementioned per-test fee.


Related Search Term(s): Java, software development, testing, Pillar


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