Discovered more on TDD

[sathenzar]

I have written some basic unit tests, but I wanted to become more intelligent on TDD topics, so I bought a book and started reading it at about 11 am this morning. It's 4:47 pm now and I am hooked. I love this methodology. I wish I could start all of my projects over with this in mind. Anyways, this probably isn't the most constructive topic in the world, but I was having a positive nerd rage. I love programming :) I hope all of you are having an awesome day!

[ZakO]

I felt the same way when I first used TDD/BDD methodologies several years ago, after a year+ of using TDD for almost every project it ultimately ended up feeling like a chore though and, for me, didn't offer enough benefit for the extra time taken. I still write extensive higher-level tests for almost all my code, but generally only use TDD for small standalone libraries/classes.

I don't particularly care for DHH but he, Martin Fowler & Kent Beck had some good discussion about the pros/cons of "modern" TDD: http://martinfowler.com/articles/is-tdd-dead/

[Andre S. Veteran]

I think TDD is one of those things that if applied well can be a key factor of success, and also a key factor of failure if applied incorrectly. That said where I currently work we spend way too much time fixing bugs and not enough developing. I would be more than happy to trade 50% of our bugfixing time for 50% added development time unit testing. At least a unit test gives you something more than just fixing a bug does: some level of confidence that you're not breaking everything when you change a line of code, and an informal spec/documentation that has the valuable property of getting compiled and verified empirically.

 

I have very little experience actually working with TDD and it's something I'm looking forward to explore in months to come.

[sathenzar]

I like the general concept, but I could see how it could be used incorrectly. It's nice to be able to stress test individual functions though to try to break them and make sure as you change your code you don't break existing functionality.