{"blyg":"0.4","id":"5wwg58jnntt0e4bcm9tcnpdn5t","kind":"thread","origin":"https://blyg.bricolage.io/","page":"t/5wwg58jnntt0e4bcm9tcnpdn5t/","author":{"name":"Kyle Mathews","url":"https://blyg.bricolage.io/"},"created":"2026-10-06T18:50:19Z","updated":"2026-10-06T18:51:26Z","version":1,"content_md":"![[3z50r8q76cs8s1zbb164v6zj49]]\n\nProbably because the physical world have far more variation than the digital world. Many digital things are pretty simple & deterministic so easy to mock. Mocks can still bite you so people still advise to avoid them when possible but they're often just fine.\n\n","content_html":"
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green tests prove the code agrees with its mocks

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As a non-software dev software person, i have never understood the purpose of mocks.

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They suck unless you really need them — generally you really need them if the thing you're mocking is too expensive or slow to run or impossible to run e.g. a 3rd party API that doesn't have a test environment.

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That’s interesting, years ago I had asked a cousin of mine who was into automobile engineering why they had to run the whole car to test a new chip. He said that they needed to get the actual signals and they mock signals just aren’t good enough.

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Didn’t go deeper into it, but it’s funny that a car should be easier to not build mocks for than code.

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Probably because the physical world have far more variation than the digital world. Many digital things are pretty simple & deterministic so easy to mock. Mocks can still bite you so people still advise to avoid them when possible but they're often just fine.

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