Epic Privacy Browser Forums

Java unit testing is one of those practices every developer knows they should do, but it’s surprisingly easy to get wrong. Over time, I’ve seen a few mistakes crop up again and again that really hurt the effectiveness of tests.

The first big one is writing overly complex tests. Unit tests should be simple and focused on one behavior. If your test looks more complicated than the code it’s testing, something’s off. It usually means you’re testing too much in one go instead of breaking things down. Another error is neglecting edge cases. Developers tend to follow the "happy path" since it's simple, but actual systems don't always act impeccably. Omitting those negative or boundary cases leaves bugs leaving production in their wake.

A third trap is failing to properly use mocks or stubs. When java unit testing , particularly with tools like Mockito, external dependencies must be mocked out. But mock too much and you eliminate realism; mock too little and your tests become slow and flaky. Getting that balance correct is the key. Finally, a lot of teams also suffer from tests rotting over time. Code changes, tests fail, and rather than fix them, people comment them out or remove them. That defeats the entire purpose of java unit testing to begin with.

Tools such as Keploy can assist here, as they produce test cases and mocks automatically from real API calls. So your unit tests can remain up to date and more maintainable, without having to recreate everything.