I often say "how am I gonna test this?" but — language being what it is — my meaning in asking that is not likely graspable by a noob. To get at what i’m really wondering when I ask this, I may have to take a few asides & detours. First. Why am I writing a test at all? What is the test doing for me? This touches a mantra you’ll hear me mutter over and over. "i don’t work […]
How’m’I Gonna Test This? See Full Post
Alrighty-then. This Hard-tdd vs Soft-tdd thing. A couple of days ago, I worked through some underplayed premises of TDD here. Along the way, I touched on what I call Hard TDD vs Soft TDD. The terms derive from AI, where proponents differ on soft-AI vs hard-AI. A semantic association, not a real analogy, so i’ll skip that. Hard vs soft here isn’t about technique, it’s about what we believe the value of the technique includes. And don’t be confused, there
Hard-TDD vs Soft-TDD See Full Post
A friend asks what to do about a bad pair. That’s a juicy one, and prods me to muse. Why do we pair? It’s one of the techniques we adopt to increase productivity. That’s measured in geekery by insights per hour, or such like. Maybe if we understand what makes good pairing, we can get closer to some possible remedies for bad pairing? Good pairing involves a bunch of otherwise disconnected-seeming aspects. These form an interactive context in which the
UPDATE: This post has been restructured and made into a video, you can view it here. Here are five underplayed premises of TDD. Why "underplayed"? Well, they’re there. Hardcore TDD’ers model them all the time. But it feels like they just don’t get the camera time. I want TDD coaches and teachers to step back from "what’s an assert" and rigid rule systems, and highlight these premises in their own work. The money premise: we are in this for the
Five Underplayed Premises of TDD See Full Post
TDD journeyfolk, let me rattle your cage a little this fine afternoon. Lemme sketch a common situation for me. I have a problem, not a small one, to be solved in a tech stack I’m not intimately familiar with. Further, some aspects of the problem are things no one on stack overflow has ever done before. They look, on paper, like they might be doable, but there’s no drop-in and very little advice. I’m in this situation where I have
Crabby Note To TDD Journeyfolk See Full Post
Yesterday, I started my explanation about not using automockers. But that muse is about just one aspect of the automocking world: interaction tests. And automockers can do a lot more than that. We could use an automocker for years without ever writing an interaction test. So, then, again, why don’t I? I’m an old fart, ya know. To the extent I’ve learned anything at all in my time here, I’ve learned that every strength is a weakness. I see that
Automocking: Don’t Take Hard Shots See Full Post
So, with the intent firmly in our minds, from yesterday, I feel closer to explaining my automock resistance. There is still some teasing apart to do. Automocking tools bring several possible aspects to the floor. The first of these is by no means required by automockers, but is commonplace. And that is behavior-based testing. Behavior-based testing is the kind of testing where i validate A in an A->B relationship, by asserting that B’s methods were called. If, in setting X,
Automocking: Behavior Tests Are Not Quite See Full Post
(When I’m teaching and coaching, I have a number of premises that I discuss and that will show up somewhere in everything I do. Here’s the money premise, which I usually bring up at the earliest opportunity.) Look, kids, we’re in this for the money. Somehow you got the idea that TDD, pairing, micro-stepping, and refactoring are not about increasing your productivity. It could be the misguided craftsmanship movement, who give you the excuse to say "we don’t have time
We’re In This For The Money See Full Post
I don’t "believe" in logs, generally. What I mean is, for developers, logs should be seen strictly as a story for ops, not a development tool. I understand why ops needs to see logs. Ops is a customer just like any other, and what they need, we can supply. But I see far too many developers use the log all day long during development. Everyone from time to time does "print" debugging, of course. No technique on earth can entirely
Stop Using Logs Everyday See Full Post
EDIT: This premise has been renamed the "Steering Premise", you can see the full video breakdown here. The Driven Premise Here’s an illustration of the most basic principle of TDD, what I call the "Driven Premise": there once was a queen who had a thousand consorts, each more brave and handsome than the next. But only if you lined them up that way. The driven premise says that tests & testability are first-class participants in design. When they are, then
The Driven Premise See Full Post
