Edw519, I agree with you about a lot of things but for this post I disagree with you in several places. >2. Try out some TDD - Test Drive Development (TDD) mak

Edw519, I agree with you about a lot of things but for this post I disagree with you in several places. >2. Try out some TDD - Test Drive Development (TDD) makes for better code. No. Define your target. Code to it. Deploy. Then test. You're both right. One of the points of tools like RSpec is to make the "define your target" step and the "test" step so close as to be indistinguishable, thus killing two birds with one and a quarter stones. >5. Investigate Continuous Integration - ...makes automating your tests to run at checkin next to trivial. Making checkin trivial is not a goal while coding. Getting something done IS. Anything that is not coding is not helping you make progress while coding. It seems like you're just disagreeing to disagree on this one. All the guy is saying is to consider having your tests run on a remote server every time you check in so that you don't break the build. This is hardly radical advice. >6. Know your code - It is one thing to write your code, but it is another greater thing to know your code. Four automated tools... "Know your code" & "automated tools" are mutually exclusive. See my response to #7 below. >7. Automate your deployments - Automation is your best friend. Wrong. This is EXACTLY to opposite of #6, "Know Your Code". Automation takes you out of the very trenches you have to be in to get to know your code in the first place. The dirtier I get, the better I know my code. How does automating deployment drudgery like checking out code and SSHing into the production box stop you from knowing your code? As a matter of fact, formalizing this process in a central location probably means you'll know your process better than the development lead who has an intern run deployment off a 12 step list scrawled on a Post-It note stuck to a monitor somewhere. More importantly, if you're using deployment as a learning exercise, you're doing it wrong.