title: unit testing for an application server
body: <p>I wrote an application server (using python &amp; twisted) and I want to start writing some tests. But I do not want to use Twisted's Trial due to time constraints and not having time to play with it now. So here is what I have in mind: write a small test client that connects to the app server and makes the necessary requests (the communication protocol is some in-house XML), store in a static way the received XML and then write some tests on those static data using unitest.</p>
  
  <p>My question is: Is this a correct approach and if yes, what kind of tests are covered with this approach?</p>
  
  <p>Also, using this method has several disadvantages, like: not being able to access the database layer in order to build/rebuild the schema, when will the test client going to connect to the server: per each unit test or before running the test suite?</p>