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Reasons to Avoid Test Driven Development

softwareandi.com

1–10 of 42 posts

Re: Reasons to Avoid Test Driven Development

#2
This article is just irritating sarcasm.

There are perfectly good reasons to avoid test-driven development. Like being part of an existing large project, where there are already too many interconnected components. Or working in complex AI algorithms, where separate testing of components is extremely painful, and lots of whole system testing is necessary anyway.

Re: Reasons to Avoid Test Driven Development

#3
I was disappointed by this article. There is no such thing as a "perfect" methodology, so I tend not to trust people who tell me their methodology is perfect. I have a lot more respect for people who recognize the tradeoffs that any methodology forces and then finds the right places to use them and the right places not to use them.

And this is not to say anything at all about TDD. There are a lot of good uses for it. It just isn't the One True Paradigm of software development. But then again, neither were dynamic languages, object oriented programming, extreme programming, nor any of the other paradigms that were going to cure the problems of software development that went on to add value when creating well thought out plans for every unique project.

Re: Reasons to Avoid Test Driven Development

#5

This article is just irritating sarcasm. There are perfectly good reasons to avoid test-driven development. Like being part of an existing large project, where there are already too many interconnected components. Or working in complex AI algorithms, where separate testing of components is extremely painful, and lots of whole system testing is necessary anyway.

[deleted]

Re: Reasons to Avoid Test Driven Development

#7
I'm a bit confused why this article was written in a satirical (sarcastic?) style. It raises a lot of good points, but it would have been much more straightforward if it hadn't been written sarcastically. All of the points in the article could have been written from the position that the author ACTUALLY advocates, which would have made it more readable without sacrificing any content.

Re: Reasons to Avoid Test Driven Development

#8
I'm a strong proponent of TDD. In my experience its more productive, and results in better software. But....

I've been in this position before: We have a large existing codebase with no unit tests to speak of, and the business is not willing to fund efforts to refactor or add unit tests. It is very hard to add unit tests after the fact. Not impossible, but its alot of work, and business folks really don't care.

Re: Reasons to Avoid Test Driven Development

#9
post #7

I'm a bit confused why this article was written in a satirical (sarcastic?) style. It raises a lot of good points, but it would have been much more straightforward if it hadn't been written sarcastically. All of the points in the article could have been written from the position that the author ACTUALLY advocates, which would have made it more readable without sacrificing any content.

It seems to me the author is such a proponent of TDD that the idea of not using it is laughable.

The humor is so dry that it almost seems like a serious article. I got a few laughs though.

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