For this week’s blog post, I decided to discuss the article “A Practical Introduction to Test Driven Development” by Luca Piccinelli. I chose this article because it compliments the test driven development topic in the syllabus. This article discusses what test driven development is, the costs of using test driven development versus not using it, and gives some examples of how test driven development is done.
The author of this article is very blunt about their feelings towards test driven development. “These days you read a ton of articles about all the advantages of doing Test Driven Development (TDD). And you probably hear a lot of talks at tech conferences that tell you to “Do the tests!”, and how cool it is to do them. And you know what? Unfortunately, they are right (not necessarily about the “cool” part, but about the useful part). Tests are a MUST!” As mentioned by the other, some of the advantages that come with using test driven development are you write better software, you have more protection from breaking the whole project when new features are introduced, your software is self documented and you avoid over engineering. However, there is a glaring issue with using test driven development: the cost.
The author discusses the costs of using test driven development versus not using test driven development in good detail. The main differences in the costs are not in terms of value but in timing. “It [test driven development] costs a lot! Probably someone is thinking “but it costs even more if you don’t do the tests” — and this is right, too. But these two costs come at different times: you do TDD you have a cost now. You don’t do TDD you will have a cost in the future.” The author feels the best way to reconcile this problem is to do what comes naturally for the project’s development. “The most effective way to get something done is doing it as naturally as possible. The nature of people is to be lazy (here software developers are the best performers) and greedy, so you have to find your way of reducing the costs now. It’s easy to say, but so hard to do!” The next section I will be covering discusses how the author feels test driven development should ne implemented.
The author feels that the best way to implement test driven development practices would be to use a top down approach. “[A top down] approach is the best friend of over-engineering. You typically build the system in order to prevent changes that you think will come in the future, without knowing if they actually will. Then when some requirement changes, it typically happens in a way that doesn’t fit your structure, no matter how good it is. For me the key to drastically reducing the immediate cost of writing with TDD has been to take a top-down approach”
Article: https://www.freecodecamp.org/news/practical-tdd-test-driven-development-84a32044ed0b/
From the blog CS@Worcester – P. McManus Worcester State CS Blog by patrickmcmanus1 and used with permission of the author. All other rights reserved by the author.