Feel like "Agitating" your source code? Now you can!

At a recent exhibition I came across an interesting tool called Agitar that "agitate" Java code in order to flush out bugs. I must say I was intrigued, and so were many others at the exhibition. In fact, I had to wait a long time before I got a chance to talk to the exhibitors. When finally my turn came, Mark McLaughlin, a senior solution consultant of Agitar (yes, the company is also called Agitar) explained to me...

Agitar is much more than a typical unit testing tool such as JUnit. It automatically generates a battery of test cases to agitate the source code (e.g., if methodA takes an int parameter, Agitar creates test cases to feed methodA with different int values), and reports observations it makes about the code by running the test cases (e.g., 'methodA runs fine for positive parameters, but fails for negative values'). Based on those observations developers can detect whether things are the way they should be.

Agitar also has a concept called 'domain experts', i.e., tools that encapulates extra domain-specific rules for creating more domain-specific tests. For example, one can use the 'Struts domain expert' when testing Struts applictions.

Although Agitar is young, it has already won awards, and apparently people are showing interest. Some webinars, self-running demos and white papers are available but unfortunately there is no trial version yet.

There are many testing tools out there, but I feel there's something extra in Agitar. I wish Agitar the best, and I also wish for a trial version (or a free 'light' version for the guys without the big bucks!).

Oh, did I mention that Agitar has managed to get Kent Beck (creator of JUnit) on board as an 'Agitar Fellow'?