8 ms·

UnitTests != TDD. Why is this confused so often? TDD is an optional variant to write tests. The benefits of TDD are questionable. The benefits of UnitTests are

UnitTests != TDD. Why is this confused so often? TDD is an optional variant to write tests. The benefits of TDD are questionable. The benefits of UnitTests are beyond question.

anon1385 13y ago
It's a deliberate marketing ploy by the TDD cultists. I see the same people doing it over and over again even after being corrected repeatedly.
- davidcuddeback 13y ago
  Actually, it's quite the opposite. TDD advocates and researchers have been trying to clarify the distinction for years. One of the motivating factors of BDD was to rebrand TDD with less of a focus on the word "test," because that word causes a lot of confusion among practitioners. Also, please drop the word "cultists." You can disagree with a technique on legitimate grounds without resorting to ad hominems. I'm downvoting you because you're not adding any substance to the debate.
- skrebbel 13y ago
  You seriously blame a vaguely defined, unorganized group of people of deliberate conspiracy? A much simpler and less nasty explanation could be that to people who do TDD, the difference between 'doing TDD' and 'writing good unit tests' is completely uninteresting. It's all part of the same engineering practice. This blog post clearly seems to target people with an interest in TDD, so I don't see what's wrong with that.
pauloortins 13y ago
Nobody said that they are same thing. People often said that they use both.
- papsosouid 13y ago
  Your article confuses the two constantly. You can't use TDD without using unit tests, TDD is a way of using unit tests. You can use unit tests without TDD. Most of what you talked about had nothing to do with TDD and was just about unit tests.
  - pauloortins 13y ago
    I wrote about using unit tests with TDD. You can use unit tests without TDD. Of course, some of the TDD benefits are also achievable when we use only unit tests.
    - papsosouid 13y ago
      TDD has no benefits, that is why the confusion is such an issue. People keep pretending the benefits of testing are benefits of TDD, when TDD is entirely unnecessary.
      - davidcuddeback 13y ago
        Can you cite the research on that? I've read much of the research on TDD, and the results are inconclusive largely because they're inconsistent. At best, there is some weak evidence of some actual benefits but at some small cost. The two major problems that I see with the research in TDD are (1) there's little confidence that TDD was applied correctly in many of the studies, and (2) the studies have too low of statistical power to make conclusions. I think you're relying on a misunderstanding of TDD to make your conclusion. You say that "people keep pretending the benefits of testing are benefits of TDD." While it's true that many practitioners confuse the two, that is not the purported benefits of TDD. It's not fair to draw a conclusion based on that premise.
        papsosouid 13y ago
        If you've read it, why do I need to re-show it to you? There is no evidence that TDD provides any benefit. There is evidence that testing provides benefits. TDD salesmen offer studies showing the benefits of testing as proof that TDD works: http://haacked.com/archive/2008/01/22/research-supports-the-effectiveness-of-tdd.aspx http://haacked.com/archive/2008/01/22/research-supports-the-...
tieTYT 13y ago
I don't get the context of your comment. Where is he confusing the two?

UnitTests != TDD. Why is this confused so often? TDD is an optional variant to write tests. The benefits of TDD are questionable. The benefits of UnitTests are beyond question.

anon1385 13y ago

It's a deliberate marketing ploy by the TDD cultists. I see the same people doing it over and over again even after being corrected repeatedly.

davidcuddeback 13y ago
Actually, it's quite the opposite. TDD advocates and researchers have been trying to clarify the distinction for years. One of the motivating factors of BDD was to rebrand TDD with less of a focus on the word "test," because that word causes a lot of confusion among practitioners. Also, please drop the word "cultists." You can disagree with a technique on legitimate grounds without resorting to ad hominems. I'm downvoting you because you're not adding any substance to the debate.
skrebbel 13y ago
You seriously blame a vaguely defined, unorganized group of people of deliberate conspiracy? A much simpler and less nasty explanation could be that to people who do TDD, the difference between 'doing TDD' and 'writing good unit tests' is completely uninteresting. It's all part of the same engineering practice. This blog post clearly seems to target people with an interest in TDD, so I don't see what's wrong with that.

pauloortins 13y ago

Nobody said that they are same thing. People often said that they use both.

papsosouid 13y ago
Your article confuses the two constantly. You can't use TDD without using unit tests, TDD is a way of using unit tests. You can use unit tests without TDD. Most of what you talked about had nothing to do with TDD and was just about unit tests.
- pauloortins 13y ago
  I wrote about using unit tests with TDD. You can use unit tests without TDD. Of course, some of the TDD benefits are also achievable when we use only unit tests.
  - papsosouid 13y ago
    TDD has no benefits, that is why the confusion is such an issue. People keep pretending the benefits of testing are benefits of TDD, when TDD is entirely unnecessary.
    - davidcuddeback 13y ago
      Can you cite the research on that? I've read much of the research on TDD, and the results are inconclusive largely because they're inconsistent. At best, there is some weak evidence of some actual benefits but at some small cost. The two major problems that I see with the research in TDD are (1) there's little confidence that TDD was applied correctly in many of the studies, and (2) the studies have too low of statistical power to make conclusions. I think you're relying on a misunderstanding of TDD to make your conclusion. You say that "people keep pretending the benefits of testing are benefits of TDD." While it's true that many practitioners confuse the two, that is not the purported benefits of TDD. It's not fair to draw a conclusion based on that premise.
      - papsosouid 13y ago
        If you've read it, why do I need to re-show it to you? There is no evidence that TDD provides any benefit. There is evidence that testing provides benefits. TDD salesmen offer studies showing the benefits of testing as proof that TDD works: http://haacked.com/archive/2008/01/22/research-supports-the-effectiveness-of-tdd.aspx http://haacked.com/archive/2008/01/22/research-supports-the-...

tieTYT 13y ago

I don't get the context of your comment. Where is he confusing the two?