Ted Leung on the air
Ted Leung on the air: Open Source, Java, Python, and ...
Ted Leung on the air: Open Source, Java, Python, and ...
Tue, 23 Dec 2003
Test Driven Development: By Example
Today I finished Kent Beck's
Test Driven Development: By Example. I started reading this before I started on the unit tests that I've been working on for the Chandler repository. Now I wish I had finished it earlier -- might have saved myself a little work.
The book is divided in to three parst. Parts one and two are a pair of examples developed in a test first style. There is a lot of minute detail and coverage of the reasoning. Some people might find this boring, I found it enlightening to see the inner thought process at work at various points along the way. The third part goes on to cover general principles of TDD. This section contained some good practices that I hope to put in place when I start back to work next week. If you are interested in the buzz/hype around TDD, I think that this book is worth a look. Suggestions for other worthwhile TDD books are welcome.
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TDD, or test-driven development is the easy to swallow portion of Extreme Programming (XP). Many times I have thought to myself "I need to just go ahead and buy these books so that I can be one with the Kool-Aid." What stops me is flipping through the books at the bookstore. First of all, TDD is probably the root of one of my pet peeves: Money examples. The first two parts, IIRC, are an example of how to get going with TDD using the development of a class representing Money as an example. Maybe Kent Beck is different, but I personally have never needed to develop a class dealing with Money before, whereas I have to deal with serializing data all the time. I understand the aspect of separating the process of TDD from the design of the class, but something a little more tangible would be quite welcome. Secondly and primarily, these books just don't seem to offer more value to me than the Wiki on XP and whatnot. I always feel that if I were to spend three or four hours with the Wiki, I would get 90% of the value I would get if I read the book. Maybe its that 10% that's the most important, but there are so many people writing about XP, TDD and Agile these days, I don't think I'm hurting. Anyway, Ted Leung, whose weblog I really enjoy reading, noted that he got some value out of TDD. In particular, the said he enjoyed absorbing the mindset of TDD that the examples present. Next time I flip through the book, I'll hold that in mind as I gaze at the text. Tangential funny - at a DFW Pragmatic Programmer lunch, someone was commenting that a new process book was basically rolling all...
Posted by Trackback from Bit Banger at Wed Dec 24 12:13:53 2003
Posted by Trackback from Bit Banger at Wed Dec 24 12:13:53 2003
I have finished TDD:BE myself, and started reading Test Driven Development: A Practical Guide by Dave Astels. As far as I know, it's the only other book to focus entirely on TDD.
(If you are interested, weeks ago I posted on my weblog a personal review of Kent Beck's book.)
Posted by Giulio Piancastelli at Tue Dec 30 15:56:39 2003
(If you are interested, weeks ago I posted on my weblog a personal review of Kent Beck's book.)
Posted by Giulio Piancastelli at Tue Dec 30 15:56:39 2003
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