Software development has a long and infamous history of The One True Way to Write Code(tm). Object oriented, agile, dynamic typing, and TDD[1] have all had thei

Software development has a long and infamous history of The One True Way to Write Code(tm). Object oriented, agile, dynamic typing, and TDD[1] have all had their moments where it was "known" that it is the only way to efficiently create quality, maintainable software. All of them have their place, but none have managed to maintain the level of importance their evangelists promoted. I've often wondered why software development is so prone to evangelical thinking. I think it is related to egos and the relative immaturity if the field. I've gotten to where I filter out the value from the hype. There are important lessons to learn from the hype, but my experience is people become more concerned about the religious practice than the actual software. 1. TDD is simply the latest. And, like the others, TDD will have a long-lasting impact on software development. Eventually, reasonable testing will be part of the collective software culture (it's getting closer, but not quite there), and tests will be written for most projects. At that point, the TDD evangelicals will have nothing but strawmen to fight against, and the next religion will form.