There's a lot of jargon thrown around when you talk about Test
Driven Development. Here's a list of common terms used in TDD
(and specifically in Test::Unit) that you should know. Test
Method - A method that tests a specific feature. Each of the
methods starting with test are the test methods. Test methods
manipulate the objects to be tested and run a number of
assertions on them, which will determine if the test is pass or
fail. More often referred to as just a "test." Assertion - A
method that will pass or fail the test method if certain
conditions are met. The most basic assertion is the familiar
assert_equal. If the two objects passed to assert_equal are not
equal, then the assertion will fail, which causes the test to
fail. No further assertions are run in a test if one of the
assertions fails, however all assertions in a test must pass in
order for the test to pass. Test Fixture - Any objects created
before and destroyed after any test in a test suite. These
objects are created using the setup method, a