Payment providers have test gateways and cards for you to test your code against.
And yet in 2020, you still can't write an automated test suite that spins up a virgin test environment, simulates all relevant scenarios, and allows you to quickly verify that your integration is responding properly as part of your normal CI process.
Working with a single, persistent test environment that offers no facilities to manage events like simulated user actions, API requests and webhooks feels like programming in another, much less productive era. Sadly, this still seems to be the norm for online payment services.
It's particularly ironic that online payment services are among the worst offenders for making API changes that require significant changes to integrations or even a whole new integration, and that by their nature they are also at high risk of Very Bad Things happening if an integration breaks. This is exactly the sort of situation where you really want a tight feedback loop and ongoing automated integration testing! Stripe used to be a welcome exception, but even they have dropped the ball badly in recent times.
I don't quite understand this comment. In my experience, payment processors (and related services) are somewhat unique in providing test gateways & APIs. Unlike other API services you can write integration tests against their test gateways. What are part of our industries is that normal? Most API-first services don't provide test endpoints at all.
In my experience, payment processors (and related services) are somewhat unique in providing test gateways & APIs.
They are also somewhat unique in that they handle real money. You don't need a simulated API if you're sending an email or SMS message to a designated recipient or downloading the local weather forecast or traffic news, because there are no significant and irreversible consequences to these actions anyway.
You can’t create an entirely new sandbox, no, but you can, quite easily test most scenarios. Including weird stuff like falling into delinquency - it takes a little bit more thought, but it’s fine.
And yet in 2020, you still can't write an automated test suite that spins up a virgin test environment, simulates all relevant scenarios, and allows you to quickly verify that your integration is responding properly as part of your normal CI process.
Working with a single, persistent test environment that offers no facilities to manage events like simulated user actions, API requests and webhooks feels like programming in another, much less productive era. Sadly, this still seems to be the norm for online payment services.
It's particularly ironic that online payment services are among the worst offenders for making API changes that require significant changes to integrations or even a whole new integration, and that by their nature they are also at high risk of Very Bad Things happening if an integration breaks. This is exactly the sort of situation where you really want a tight feedback loop and ongoing automated integration testing! Stripe used to be a welcome exception, but even they have dropped the ball badly in recent times.