I agree with you, which is why I think the GPs post that TDD is not a dogma but another tool in your toolbox makes sense. Just like the larger development commu

I agree with you, which is why I think the GPs post that TDD is not a dogma but another tool in your toolbox makes sense. Just like the larger development community when faced with new tools, individual developers go through the pattern of adoption where they start using a technique for everything (the honeymoon phase) and then through that phase they learn when the tool is appropriate and when the tool I not. As posters in your linked thread point out, the irony is that Norvig would have probably been better off using TDD since he knew the general shape of his solution already where Jeffries likely should have been writing several spikes to explore the solution space rather than using TDD since he was unfamiliar with the problem and did not yet have a good solution.