> That may not be what they're "for" (wtf does that even mean?)
It means that “[mocks are] a way to allow you to test code that you can't improve right now” and “[mocks are] a stepping-stone for testing and improving a large existing codebase” is a mischaracterisation of the role and benefits of mocks.
If using them like that is useful for you then that’s great, but it’s misleading to say that that’s why “they’re there”.
Steve Freeman & Nat Pryce’s book [0], for example, is an excellent illustration of what mocks are for.
