> If Joel can write down a life's work in a couple of sentences, then there is definitely not much to it in the first place. You seem to presume that Joel has

> If Joel can write down a life's work in a couple of sentences, then there is definitely not much to it in the first place. You seem to presume that Joel has written down Beck's life's work in a couple of sentences. The whole point of Kent's post is to refute this presumption. Joel himself wrote a post giving a twelve-point "Joel Test" for software development practices: http://www.joelonsoftware.com/articles/fog0000000043.html http://www.joelonsoftware.com/articles/fog0000000043.html I'm sure you agree that Joel did not write down his own life's work in articulating twelve simple yes or no questions about software development practices. There's more to Joel's own experience than those twelve questions, and there's more to Kent's life's work than Joel's off-hand remarks. I'll close my rebuttal to your comment by pointing out that you have just summarized your own stance on software development with some amazingly superficial and non-actionable prescriptions. But I would never presume that these prescriptions, right or wrong, would summarize your life's work either. Nor would I jump to hasty conclusions about your experience based on whether I agree or disagree with your stance on TDD.