This blog post is for those of you who are unaware that there is a major debate in contemporary software development happening now, today. People have been wondering about the value of Test-Driven Development (TDD) for a long while, but it was not until David Heinemeier Hansson of 37 Signals posted a blog article on St. George’s Day (23rd April 2014 and a significant day personally for me) called “TDD is Dead. Long live testing”. It started an unstoppable momentum of discussion into what is now a heated and controversial topic. So I encourage you read his article, first, if you are an experienced software engineer and then watch the videos.
After this article was posted to the Internet, Heinemeier Hanson, Martin Fowler and Kent Beck followed up with a series of Google Hangout recordings, in May and June, each one was about 30 minutes long. The last edition (part V and VII), which was full hour long was very revealing, because it was a question and answer sessions from the community and therefore extended the discussion to the wider audience. If you have 3 hours of free time, instead watching another Hollywood movie or re-runs of World Cup football, then it is well worth your time to listening (and/or watching) the entire series to understand the debate and different points of view.
As for my own opinion on TDD, it has a place in my toolbox like another hammer or a screwdriver, and it should be treated as such. To be a TDD practitioner requires skill and discipline; and the knowledge to believe that it is not appropriate in all situations. I have some sympathy with Heinemeier Hansson’s frustrated view, “Most people cannot just leave good ideas the f**k alone”. I witnessed a certain zealotry in a couple job interviews a few years ago, when interviewers used the technique like an officer using a truncheon to beat somebody with. If you didn’t write code in a correct view for the client, you were rejected. I raised suspicions in my head about the variations of different testing styles across different organisations and sectors. In the end, I have suspected that you do not have write code test first all the time, with the plethora of unit testing frameworks out there such JUnit, ScalaTest, Scala Specs. It is more important to have the ground level, there must be tests in the application and system software that exercise the customer’s acceptance requirement and produces a Minimal Viable Product. This is definite the road to follow.
PS: The first video in the series, “Is TDD Dead?”, starts here.
| Reference: | Is TDD Dead Or Alive? from our JCG partner Peter Pilgrim at the Peter Pilgrim’s blog blog. |
