For many, Unit Testing is how we prove to ourselves (and others) that our code works, at least initially. And yet, many unit tests fail to find the very reproducible, localized bugs they were to prevent. One reason this happens is our natural tendency to create unit tests to prove that our code works, rather than to prove that it fails.
The scientific method suggests the opposite direction. A claim is scientific if it is falsifiable .
A good unit test (and a good acceptance test) will try to prove the code wrong, by including as many edge cases as possible, and by challenging the code invariants.
Good testers know this, and spend much time looking for edge cases. But we developers should keep the same mind-frame, and try to prove our own code wrong.
It's OK.
If the code is proven wrong by your unit tests, you just fix your code. You didn't check in code before writing your unit tests, now did you? :)
