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> I think this is the sort of statement that makes some of us foam at the mouth and gesticulate wildly at well-intentioned TDD proponents. TDD doesn't prove any
by joevandyk 17y ago
> I think this is the sort of statement that makes some of us foam at the mouth and gesticulate wildly at well-intentioned TDD proponents. TDD doesn't prove anything of the sort. It proves that the code passed your tests before you made the change and passed them after - which is a very, very different thing from proving the change you made did what you expect.
Would it have helped if the OP had said "made me more confident" instead of "proves"?
- pvg 17y agoIt would not have helped at all since it completely changes the meaning. 'proves' is a statement about the code, if true then we can talk about the influence of TDD on the code. 'made me more confident' is a statement about the author's state of mind - it lets us talk about the effect of TDD on the author's state of mind, which is a lot less interesting. Re-reading my code carefully or telling myself I'm awesome might make me more confident in my code changes but you rarely hear much about Careful Inspection Driven or Self-affirmation Driven Design.