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Cedric Beust on Test Extremism and Test-Driven Development

33 replies on 3 pages. Most recent reply: Mar 18, 2008 9:46 AM by Elizabeth Wiethoff

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Elizabeth Wiethoff

Posts: 89
Nickname: ewiethoff
Registered: Mar, 2005

Re: Cedric Beust on Test Extremism and Test-Driven Development

Posted: Mar 11, 2008 12:59 AM

> Jim Copliens' criticism about TDD is valid, but as I have said above, it is based on the assumption (misconception) that people are suggesting that TDD is all you need to do for design. No one is saying this.

So tell us, O enlightened Coached person, what is needed for design. Or perhaps you should not, lest we dash off and attempt all this without proper side-by-side coaching.

> Go to your local Agile Developers Group (there are several out there), bring along your laptop and ask if some one is willing to pair with you and show you TDD. I'm sure you will find plenty of volunteers :^)

I ain't got no laptop, but I've been an active member of a local XP group for over 3 years. And I say our code design has sucked mightily since the 3rd month!

Johannes Link

Posts: 3
Nickname: jlink
Registered: Sep, 2004

Re: Cedric Beust on Test Extremism and Test-Driven Development

Posted: Mar 13, 2008 1:14 AM

@Elizabeth

> So tell us, O enlightened Coached person, what is needed for
> design. Or perhaps you should not, lest we dash off and
> attempt all this without proper side-by-side coaching.

Point is, some people persevere on their own until they have reached a productive stage. Others do not. This is true for TDD and most (if not all) non-trivial activities.

My experience after almost 10 years of practicing and coaching TDD is that only few manage on their own and (too) many even don't make it with (my) coaching. I guess, you can regard this as a valid argument against TDD: It won't be picked up by every developer out there. Some just do not want to, some are not able to - despite their best efforts. However, I've seen this with a lot of other valuable things like design patterns, OO design, refactoring, DDD ... you name it.

Johannes

David Vydra

Posts: 60
Nickname: dvydra
Registered: Feb, 2004

Re: Cedric Beust on Test Extremism and Test-Driven Development

Posted: Mar 17, 2008 8:20 PM

This is a very good thread that highlights real experiences of practicing engineers. I tend to lean towards Cedric's conclusions. A few months ago I have changed the direction of testdriven.com to include all aspects of automated testing. I do not find Uncle Bob's claim that "if you do not do TDD, you are not professional" encouraging, though at one time, I exhibited a similar attitude. When I got started with TDD, it has worked for _me_ very well, but different people working on different code will choose different ways of working and different ways of managing their risks.

Elizabeth Wiethoff

Posts: 89
Nickname: ewiethoff
Registered: Mar, 2005

Re: Cedric Beust on Test Extremism and Test-Driven Development

Posted: Mar 18, 2008 9:46 AM

I hope I wasn't too sarcastic earlier. I was establishing the argument that learning TDD side-by-side with someone and practicing it for some length of time on various projects does not necessarily lead to easy-to-maintain code. I personally have seen (and still live with) Coplien's "architectural meltdown" a few months after a project starting up. This does not, however, mean the meltdown is inevitable. Nor does it mean my XP team is just too bumbling, for the architecture in our previous project didn't melt.

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