[suralind]

I think you are correct in your assessment. Both are important. If you're gonna have garbage code tests, you're gonna have garbage quality.

I find tests easier to write. Your function(s) may be hundred lines long, but the test is usually setup, run, assert.

I don't have much experience beyond writing unit/integration tests, but individual test cases seem to be simpler than the code they test (linear, no branches).