When the snapshots are somewhat human readable this technique is also very useful for validating changes.
Hook up the last known good snapshot and the new output to your favorite diff UI and you'll get a pretty good idea about the actual effects of the code changes. I feel more confident signing off a new "known good" based on reviewing a full document diff than after iterating a set of meticiously hand-crafted expectations alongside the production code until convergence.
Hook up the last known good snapshot and the new output to your favorite diff UI and you'll get a pretty good idea about the actual effects of the code changes. I feel more confident signing off a new "known good" based on reviewing a full document diff than after iterating a set of meticiously hand-crafted expectations alongside the production code until convergence.