The Life Starter
0 of 6 complete0%
Course Library · Lesson 5 of 6
Digital · Guided lesson

Prove the suite detects a real wrong change

About 26 minutes · 4 reading + 22 practice and checks
Time includes reading, practice, and questions. Extra videos or further study are optional.
See this course’s project requirements

A before/after fictional fee calculator split into pure functions with an executable equivalence suite, clearer names and documented intentional nonchanges.

Keep your working files in your own notebook or software. Save a private description, checklist, and work link in My Proof.

What to include

  • Produce a complete valid/rejected behavior contract and intentional-change boundary.
  • Retain full finite valid-space coverage and explicitly scoped invalid-case comparisons.
  • Create checked validation/subtotal helpers and preserve the public entry contract.
  • Produce a domain-name/reference review with unchanged discount and delivery semantics.
  • Retain a passing baseline and an expected failing price mutation without altering final pricing.
  • Deliver an independently reasoned, repeatable refactor with finite coverage and selected-invalid limits.

Review and revise

Use these criteria to check your work and choose what to improve.

  • The implementation or declared simulation follows the supplied contract and retains inspectable original inputs.
  • Normal, boundary and rejected cases are recorded with expected versus observed results.
  • The changed case has a correct explanation and does not rely on hidden state.
  • The project includes source, outputs, instructions and honest tool, privacy and verification limits.
Open the full course project
Want more background?
Before you begin

The idea in everyday life

Fictional workshop kits: quantity 1–20, $3 per kit, a 20% member discount on kit subtotal, and $2.50 only for post. Calculations return integer cents. legacy_fee.py and refactored_fee.py must agree on permitted and rejected requests.

The idea

A green suite is stronger when a deliberate bounded mutation produces the expected failure. The mutation must alter behavior, not merely break syntax.

Follow along

Prove the suite detects a real wrong change — original worked practice

A green suite is stronger when a deliberate bounded mutation produces the expected failure. The mutation must alter behavior, not merely break syntax.

Fictional workshop kits: quantity 1–20, $3 per kit, a 20% member discount on kit subtotal, and $2.50 only for post. Calculations return integer cents. legacy_fee.py and refactored_fee.py must agree on permitted and rejected requests.

  1. 1. Step 1

    Read test-refactor-repair.py: it first runs the unchanged equivalence suite.

    You should see: The baseline must pass before the mutation check.

    A green suite is stronger when a deliberate bounded mutation produces the expected failure. The mutation must alter behavior, not merely break syntax.

  2. 2. Step 2

    Inspect its temporary-copy change UNIT_CENTS=300→301.

    You should see: The mutation changes a price while leaving valid Python syntax.

    A green suite is stronger when a deliberate bounded mutation produces the expected failure. The mutation must alter behavior, not merely break syntax.

  3. 3. Step 3

    Run python3 test-refactor-repair.py and inspect the expected nonzero mutated run captured by the wrapper.

    You should see: The changed-price mutation produces an AssertionError.

    A green suite is stronger when a deliberate bounded mutation produces the expected failure. The mutation must alter behavior, not merely break syntax.

  4. 4. Step 4

    Keep the unchanged source as final and retain the pass/fail/repair evidence.

    You should see: A verified detection cycle using a temporary copy.

    A green suite is stronger when a deliberate bounded mutation produces the expected failure. The mutation must alter behavior, not merely break syntax.

Now change one thing

A mutation only deletes a closing parenthesis. Does its SyntaxError demonstrate price-rule equivalence coverage?

Your work

What to finish

Retain a passing baseline and an expected failing price mutation without altering final pricing.

Common mistake

Watch for this

Treating a syntax error as evidence that pricing assertions detect a real semantic regression.

How can I tell I understand it?

Demonstrate the rule: A green suite is stronger when a deliberate bounded mutation produces the expected failure. The mutation must alter behavior, not merely break syntax. Use the supplied variant to distinguish a changed result from a broken implementation.

Try 3 questions

Quick knowledge check

Answer all 3 questions. Get at least 2 right and the lesson completes automatically.

Not yet passed

You’ll get an explanation for each answer. Signed in? Your results save to your account.

1Why mutate UNIT_CENTS from 300 to 301 in a temporary copy?
2What must happen before accepting the mutation evidence?
3Which source should be delivered as the final refactor?
0 of 3 answeredApply the lesson to a short question, then review the explanation.
5
Finish this lesson

Pass the check. We’ll save the progress.

Answer all 3 questions above and get at least 2 right. You can review the explanations and try again.

Go to the knowledge check
Tools, templates, and lesson sources

Tools and templates

Tools open in a new tab so you can keep your place here.

Sources and further reading

Explore the references behind this lesson.

docs.python.org — unittest.html
Source & access notes · checked 2026-10-01

Relevant documented module/API behavior inspected during expansion authoring; actual execution evidence is recorded separately. No grant eligibility is established.

Access: Official page retrieved with the web reader on 2026-10-01. Documentation reading does not certify execution in every native tool or browser.

Reuse: Original local practice files, fictional data, worked examples and questions. Concepts paraphrased and linked; source exercises are not copied.

docs.python.org — controlflow.html
Source & access notes · checked 2026-10-01

Relevant documented module/API behavior inspected during expansion authoring; actual execution evidence is recorded separately. No grant eligibility is established.

Access: Official page retrieved with the web reader on 2026-10-01. Documentation reading does not certify execution in every native tool or browser.

Reuse: Original local practice files, fictional data, worked examples and questions. Concepts paraphrased and linked; source exercises are not copied.

docs.python.org — modules.html
Source & access notes · checked 2026-10-01

Relevant documented module/API behavior inspected during expansion authoring; actual execution evidence is recorded separately. No grant eligibility is established.

Access: Official page retrieved with the web reader on 2026-10-01. Documentation reading does not certify execution in every native tool or browser.

Reuse: Original local practice files, fictional data, worked examples and questions. Concepts paraphrased and linked; source exercises are not copied.

Report a problem with this lesson

Tell us what went wrong. Please leave out personal information and private project contents.

No sign-in needed.