Hmm, I guess I don't really consider throwaway assertions in pursuit of debugging "tests" in the typical sense.
I certainly wouldn't advocate for code reorganization for that case, but if there is a property that is important to maintain over time that isn't easily expressed by exercising the public API, it does suggest that reorganization is probably in order.
> Hmm, I guess I don't really consider throwaway assertions in pursuit of debugging "tests" in the typical sense.
I agree it is not "tests" in the documentation sense, and I did mention that, but, regardless, you do seem to align on "throwaway". Now you have me curious, what kind of ephemeral "tests" were you imagining if not something similar to what I described in more detail later?
I suppose I was imagining tests that are created to validate an internal piece of code when it's first built or refactored, not necessarily in pursuit of a specific observed bug.
I certainly wouldn't advocate for code reorganization for that case, but if there is a property that is important to maintain over time that isn't easily expressed by exercising the public API, it does suggest that reorganization is probably in order.