"Beyond TDD: Spike and Stabilize"

* first, it makes little sense and you follow by rote

* second, you understand and explore

* third you have absorbed and use what is appropriate, naturally

and this is "ri-testing". it's going to confuse shu and annoy ha, hence the defensiveness...

(more generally, i think this is a very useful way of looking at progress. one danger, though, is that it's tempting to think you are ri when you're actually just a ha that's screwing up.) (and apologies for using what i suspect are very carefully defined terms in some marshal art out of context and in grammatically odd ways.)