http://qs321.pair.com?node_id=1154376

mrguy123 has asked for the wisdom of the Perl Monks concerning the following question:

Hi Monks
I am part of a bioinformatics team working in Perl and we are now trying to improve our code standards.
One of the things we are looking to do is run automatic tests (e.g. Test::More) for our code.

A discussion arose on what should we test automatically.
In my previous (limited) experience regular unit testing (or edge case scenarios) would be done manually, and automatic testing would be more global.
That means you wouldn't use Test::More to check every possible outcome of a subroutine but only a a few specific tests to make sure the program is running correctly. Is this the correct approach or am I completely wrong?
Also, what would be the best method for automatic testing of scripts we use?

I understand this is a complicated issue with many different approaches but any feedback would be great!

Thanks for your help (and wisdom)
Guy (MrGuy) Naamati UPDATE: Thanks for the replies - we will take them into account in developing testing standards