Having the code coverage markers in the code editor is a fantastic tool. One thing I've found myself doing is looking for "holes" in the coverage to determine if there are any missing tests. (Unfortunately I have to work with a lot of legacy code)
Quite often though I'm trying to work out the opposite, wanting to make sure at least 1 test doesn't take a particular path. I've been doing this by looking at the number of covering tests, and making sure that, for example, the number of covering tests in the body of an if is less than the number executing the condition.
It would be nice if this was easier to visualise.
One way I was thinking this could happen (and I suspect there are many other ways) is the we could quickly switch to a mode where the coverage icons have a column for each test, instead of a single comlumn for all tests.
So (with * filling in for the coverage indicator):
* if (IsConditionTrue())
* {
* DoSomeWork();
* }
would become something like this:
**** if (IsConditionTrue())
**** {
* ** DoSomeWork();
**** }
with the second column having a black indicator showing that that line is not covered by that particular test.
This is not a fully formed idea, theres a lot of options, I don't think you'd want this enabled most of the time, so being able to switch it on and off quickly in the editor would be important. Or possibly having it in a tooltip on each indicator. There are also questions about if it would work when there are very large number of tests.
Andy
