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I wish TDD advocates would stop equating unit testing with TDD. Just because I am not a member of your wacky cult, doesn't mean I don't use unit tests. This a

I wish TDD advocates would stop equating unit testing with TDD. Just because I am not a member of your wacky cult, doesn't mean I don't use unit tests. This article isn't about when to skip tests, it is about when to skip TDD. Big difference (and the real answer is always).

Roboprog 13y ago
I like automated tests when they are low hanging fruit. Most often though, I'll settle for specs that are detailed enough to tell how to operate a feature, rather than just a hand-wave. I'm not too happy when coworkers commit code and don't bother to run it at all :-( See the comment somebody made elsewhere about "money driven development". The cost-benefit ratio has to make sense.
kasey_junk 13y ago
TDD is a design tool nothing more. It happens to be a design tool that creates unit tests as a nice side benefit. If you have a better design tool in your arsenal, feel free to use it, but before you slam TDD as a cult, I'd ask what is your design process and why/how is it better than TDD?
- papsosouid 13y ago
  I am not slamming it, it is a cult. Read what he wrote, these people literally think you either do TDD, or you are wrong. Despite all the actual testing of TDD having found it offers no benefits at all.
  - Morendil 13y ago
    Citation needed.
  - kasey_junk 13y ago
    A) Using the term "cult" is almost certainly a slam. B) Who are "these" people? I am certainly a fan of TDD but I know that there are lots of other processes that work. I know lots of other people that feel like me. C) I would love to see what testing has indicated about TDD, what studies are you referring to? Finally, I'm not interesting in raving about design processes. I am interested in hearing about how other technical people work. What design process do you use? Why do you prefer it to TDD? How have you gone about comparing the 2?
    - papsosouid 13y ago
      >Using the term "cult" is almost certainly a slam Hyperbole is a far cry from "a slam". >Who are "these" people? The ones writing articles like this one. >what studies are you referring to? http://theruntime.com/blogs/jacob/archive/2008/01/22/tdd-proven-effective-or-is-it.aspx http://theruntime.com/blogs/jacob/archive/2008/01/22/tdd-pro... >Finally, I'm not interesting in raving about design processes. But you are the only one doing so? The rest of the paragraph that follows that sentence for example. Most people do not have a religion they call a "design process".
      - kasey_junk 13y ago
        You keep using religious "hyperbole" and it is making it hard for me to understand your perspective. So let me just ask a couple of direct questions that are easily answered using TDD. 1. How do you determine what is a "unit" that should be covered by a test? 2. How do you determine what a given method/function's responsibilities are? 3. How do you determine where to put a given method or function? 4. How do you get feedback on if your design decisions are correct? You've also yet to tell me what it is specifically that you don't like about TDD. I'm truly not trolling, I'm curious whenever anyone has such vitriol for a given software technique. As for the linked article (and the underlying primary research) criticizing TDD, I had read both of those before and I think they speak to a problem with the primary research more than addressing TDD in any significant way (that's not to say you couldn't design a study that did prove TDD was harmful). Finally, are you being ironic when you say that the original posted articles author is being cultish about TDD? The article specifically tells it's readers not to use TDD. I don't get how that is cultish.
        papsosouid 13y ago
        What are you reading? Because it is pretty clearly not what I wrote. How is "I wish TDD advocates would stop equating unit testing with TDD" vitriol? Dismissing the only actual evidence because it doesn't fit your beliefs is not reasonable. TDD advocates are the one making claims. Nobody said TDD is harmful, just that it has no benefits and that TDD does not equal unit testing. As for not thinking the article author is cultish, try reading the first paragraph. It is literally "TDD is everything, all hail TDD, TDD solves all problems" and is all completely baseless.
prepend 13y ago
TDD has some challenges, but it addresses the critical need of having solid unit tests for code that allow projects to be modified and used by diverse sets of programmers who aren't going to reach out and ask you if their change broke your code. I've frequently heard criticism of TDD most loudly by those who don't write unit tests, do unit tests manually, or intend to write them "after they get everything working." This last excuse is most egregious because one rarely has time to go back and write tests for something that is working because there will always be something more pressing than addressing the minor technical debt of writing "unneeded tests."
- papsosouid 13y ago
  >but it addresses the critical need of having solid unit tests No, it is entirely orthogonal to having unit tests, that's exactly what I was saying. There is absolutely no evidence to support the claims that TDD is more effective than just being a normal developer who writes tests as needed. >This last excuse is most egregious because one rarely has time to go back and write tests Says who? I think it is pretty absurd to invent fake problems to try to justify something. If TDD were actually useful, proponents wouldn't need to compare TDD with "don't write tests at all because obviously the only way to end up with tests is using TDD".

Roboprog 13y ago

I like automated tests when they are low hanging fruit. Most often though, I'll settle for specs that are detailed enough to tell how to operate a feature, rather than just a hand-wave. I'm not too happy when coworkers commit code and don't bother to run it at all :-( See the comment somebody made elsewhere about "money driven development". The cost-benefit ratio has to make sense.

kasey_junk 13y ago

TDD is a design tool nothing more. It happens to be a design tool that creates unit tests as a nice side benefit. If you have a better design tool in your arsenal, feel free to use it, but before you slam TDD as a cult, I'd ask what is your design process and why/how is it better than TDD?

papsosouid 13y ago
I am not slamming it, it is a cult. Read what he wrote, these people literally think you either do TDD, or you are wrong. Despite all the actual testing of TDD having found it offers no benefits at all.
- Morendil 13y ago
  Citation needed.
- kasey_junk 13y ago
  A) Using the term "cult" is almost certainly a slam. B) Who are "these" people? I am certainly a fan of TDD but I know that there are lots of other processes that work. I know lots of other people that feel like me. C) I would love to see what testing has indicated about TDD, what studies are you referring to? Finally, I'm not interesting in raving about design processes. I am interested in hearing about how other technical people work. What design process do you use? Why do you prefer it to TDD? How have you gone about comparing the 2?
  - papsosouid 13y ago
    >Using the term "cult" is almost certainly a slam Hyperbole is a far cry from "a slam". >Who are "these" people? The ones writing articles like this one. >what studies are you referring to? http://theruntime.com/blogs/jacob/archive/2008/01/22/tdd-proven-effective-or-is-it.aspx http://theruntime.com/blogs/jacob/archive/2008/01/22/tdd-pro... >Finally, I'm not interesting in raving about design processes. But you are the only one doing so? The rest of the paragraph that follows that sentence for example. Most people do not have a religion they call a "design process".
    - kasey_junk 13y ago
      You keep using religious "hyperbole" and it is making it hard for me to understand your perspective. So let me just ask a couple of direct questions that are easily answered using TDD. 1. How do you determine what is a "unit" that should be covered by a test? 2. How do you determine what a given method/function's responsibilities are? 3. How do you determine where to put a given method or function? 4. How do you get feedback on if your design decisions are correct? You've also yet to tell me what it is specifically that you don't like about TDD. I'm truly not trolling, I'm curious whenever anyone has such vitriol for a given software technique. As for the linked article (and the underlying primary research) criticizing TDD, I had read both of those before and I think they speak to a problem with the primary research more than addressing TDD in any significant way (that's not to say you couldn't design a study that did prove TDD was harmful). Finally, are you being ironic when you say that the original posted articles author is being cultish about TDD? The article specifically tells it's readers not to use TDD. I don't get how that is cultish.
      - papsosouid 13y ago
        What are you reading? Because it is pretty clearly not what I wrote. How is "I wish TDD advocates would stop equating unit testing with TDD" vitriol? Dismissing the only actual evidence because it doesn't fit your beliefs is not reasonable. TDD advocates are the one making claims. Nobody said TDD is harmful, just that it has no benefits and that TDD does not equal unit testing. As for not thinking the article author is cultish, try reading the first paragraph. It is literally "TDD is everything, all hail TDD, TDD solves all problems" and is all completely baseless.

prepend 13y ago

TDD has some challenges, but it addresses the critical need of having solid unit tests for code that allow projects to be modified and used by diverse sets of programmers who aren't going to reach out and ask you if their change broke your code. I've frequently heard criticism of TDD most loudly by those who don't write unit tests, do unit tests manually, or intend to write them "after they get everything working." This last excuse is most egregious because one rarely has time to go back and write tests for something that is working because there will always be something more pressing than addressing the minor technical debt of writing "unneeded tests."

papsosouid 13y ago
>but it addresses the critical need of having solid unit tests No, it is entirely orthogonal to having unit tests, that's exactly what I was saying. There is absolutely no evidence to support the claims that TDD is more effective than just being a normal developer who writes tests as needed. >This last excuse is most egregious because one rarely has time to go back and write tests Says who? I think it is pretty absurd to invent fake problems to try to justify something. If TDD were actually useful, proponents wouldn't need to compare TDD with "don't write tests at all because obviously the only way to end up with tests is using TDD".