What could be worse than having no tests?

About this episode

The episode discusses how to evaluate third-party packages for Laravel projects, emphasizing the importance of tests and other signals of quality.

Found a cool package on Laravel News? But how do you know if it's actually worth installing? In the latest episode of the No Compromises podcast, we discuss what we look for when evaluating third-party packages before bringing them into a project. Aaron makes the case that what he finds in the tests folder is essentially a deal-breaker: no tests means no trust, but leaving default example tests behind is somehow even worse. Tests reveal whether the maintainer thought through edge cases and serve as living documentation when the README falls short. We also cover the other signals we weigh: GitHub stars, download counts, issue responsiveness, and how quickly maintainers keep up with new Laravel versions. (00:00) - Evaluating packages you stumble across (01:30) - Why leftover example tests frustrate Aaron (03:45) - Tests as documentation and edge case proof (05:00) - Checking issues and Laravel version history (08:00) - Silly bit Want to work with us on your project?

People in this episode

Hosts: Aaron Saray, Joel Clermont

Topics covered

• package evaluation
• testing
• Laravel
• third-party packages
• software development

Keywords

• Laravel
• testing
• package evaluation
• software quality
• open source

Mentioned in this episode

Organizations: Laravel News

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