Testing with Mocks

Have you ever seen or heard this?
- My unit tests break when the database is down.
- You have to use this special Spring context when you run the unit tests.
- It's impossible to "unit" test this code.

There is general acceptance that automated unit testing is an important part of validating the code we write.  In practice, it can be difficult to create true unit level tests.  Many times what we call unit tests end up being integrated tests that exercise multiple features or classes.  Testing with Mocks provides a fast, and easy means for creating truly unit level tests.