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Your last sentence is beautiful. You're on the journey. If TDD is slowing a developer down because they don't know what the architecture is, it's a strong indi

Your last sentence is beautiful. You're on the journey. If TDD is slowing a developer down because they don't know what the architecture is, it's a strong indicator that the plan isn't complete. By the time TDD is being used, it should be as obvious what to do as unpacking a U-Haul truck full of boxes parked in front of an empty house with the door propped open.

gridlockd 6y ago
Yeah sure, you have your clean architecture laid out without having written a single line of code. Then you implement it and it all works out fine, on time and on budget. That's a nice fairy-tale.
- hitekker 6y ago
  Yep, the GP's statement is completely dissonant from reality. Inverting the development process may be useful for some well understood domains, but certainly not a majority, let alone the amount TDD zealots proclaim.
mattlondon 6y ago
> By the time TDD is being used, it should be as obvious what to do as unpacking a U-Haul truck full of boxes parked in front of an empty house with the door propped open. <sarcasm>By the time TDD is being used, you should have already have known way ahead of time the house you were going to move to in the future and simply just had your amazon orders shipped to that address in the first place. If you have to move your boxes at all, your design was clearly incomplete originally and you should not have started buying belongings until you knew the final house you were going to live in first.</sarcasm> Real life is too messy for TDD 99% of the time I find. Unexpected things happen (e.g. you move house) that means you can't know everything ahead of time.
- digitalsushi 6y ago
  I hear you. But I feel that saying real life is too messy for TDD 99 out of 100 times, is an appeal to fatalism. I believe, in good faith, that more often than one percent of the time, the existence of a good plan is what enables TDD to be the successful demonstration it claims to be. The trust that we grow as practitioners of good software architecture is what enables us to have these talking points. I believe that we should feel enabled to discuss how to succeed, and less so how to fail.

gridlockd 6y ago

Yeah sure, you have your clean architecture laid out without having written a single line of code. Then you implement it and it all works out fine, on time and on budget. That's a nice fairy-tale.

hitekker 6y ago
Yep, the GP's statement is completely dissonant from reality. Inverting the development process may be useful for some well understood domains, but certainly not a majority, let alone the amount TDD zealots proclaim.

mattlondon 6y ago

> By the time TDD is being used, it should be as obvious what to do as unpacking a U-Haul truck full of boxes parked in front of an empty house with the door propped open. <sarcasm>By the time TDD is being used, you should have already have known way ahead of time the house you were going to move to in the future and simply just had your amazon orders shipped to that address in the first place. If you have to move your boxes at all, your design was clearly incomplete originally and you should not have started buying belongings until you knew the final house you were going to live in first.</sarcasm> Real life is too messy for TDD 99% of the time I find. Unexpected things happen (e.g. you move house) that means you can't know everything ahead of time.

digitalsushi 6y ago
I hear you. But I feel that saying real life is too messy for TDD 99 out of 100 times, is an appeal to fatalism. I believe, in good faith, that more often than one percent of the time, the existence of a good plan is what enables TDD to be the successful demonstration it claims to be. The trust that we grow as practitioners of good software architecture is what enables us to have these talking points. I believe that we should feel enabled to discuss how to succeed, and less so how to fail.