I’m a developer. I hate TDD.
There, I’ve said it, and it might jeopardise my future should I find myself looking for new developer positions, but it just sucks IMHO.
I see loads of developer posts being advertised, most with TDD as an essential requirement. I disagree – it’s one way to achieve good code, but has always seemed to me to be a big, fat waste of time. I guess it might be relevant for developers coming to a project cold, who don’t understand the data or the processes. My development (and I might have been extremely lucky here) has always been in a team where I’ve been able to visualise the product, the data, the use and the user (e.g. eBird, Bird Atlas 2007-11, BirdTrack).
I don’t think I’m alone in this view either:
- What seems to be cited most often: TDD is dead. Long live testing.
- A good closing statement: TTD or not to TTD – “If you have been writing tests and code in a language for a long time, it’s possible that you can start skipping TDD’s baby steps, and start trying to code the final solution from the start. Be aware! Sometimes to advance, we have to return to the basics!”
Of course, TTD is NOT DEAD, but I just choose to not implement it…