Neal Ford (Thoughtworks) said in a recent talk that he can tell which projects were written with TDD vs. non-TDD by looking at one metric. Cyclomatic Complexity

Neal Ford (Thoughtworks) said in a recent talk that he can tell which projects were written with TDD vs. non-TDD by looking at one metric. Cyclomatic Complexity. He said that TDD code typically results in a code base having classes with an average cyclomatic complexity of 1.5 - 2. Non-TDD code typically results in cyclomatic complexity of 15 or so. I do think you would drop in productivity for a while, but you'd level up in a month or so because it'd force you to write more maintainable code. > the product of this kind of ideas-untempered-by-serious-experience. (chuckle) That's a pretty myopic view. I've written some pretty freaking complex software, and I've done TDD and non-TDD. My TDD code is waaaay better and much less brittle than my complex, not-TDD code. I hate reopening the projects where the team didn't use TDD...it's scary to change. And I forget what I was thinking when I wrote that 250 line method with all these cute little shortcuts that I thought were so cool at the time. Now I have to spend time reading the code like a man stares at ancient hieroglyphics trying to decipher the mind of an Egyptian pharaoh.