Study Guide: Scientific software engineering for a simple ODE problem

$$ \newcommand{\uex}{{u_{\small\mbox{e}}}} \newcommand{\tp}{\thinspace .} $$

Purpose of a test function: raise AssertionError if failure

Alternative ways of raising AssertionError if result is not 8:

import nose.tools as nt

def test_double():
    result = ...

    nt.assert_equal(result, 8)    # alternative 1

    assert result == 8            # alternative 2

    if result != 8:               # alternative 3
        raise AssertionError()