Hacker News Reader

Comment by thetrumanshow | Hacker News Reader

TDD is like those best-practices books that everyone pretends to read, but hardly anyone ever really reads them (I'm looking at you Code Complete). The Folks that do read these books know the dirty secret that no one else really reads them either, but they feel that endorsing the books somehow gives them credibility.

TDD has its place, as most all main-stream methodologies do. But, lets just admit that the people that use this methodology are in the minority. The rest of us are working on smallish projects that are struggling to be worthy of the time-budget that they've been granted, and we're more worried about shipping than caring about how not having TDD in place will slow us down in phase III. Assuming phase III ever happens. We're using all the best-practices we can, but TDD doesn't rise above the bar most of the time.

View on HN

You're strawmanning.

Uncle Bob isn't saying "If you aren't using TDD at the startup phase, you suck!" What he's saying is "Just because you're in the startup phase and think you're invincible doesn't mean you should throw best practices out the window." There are good excuses for not using TDD, and I tend to agree that "We're in a startup phase. We don't have time for this crap." isn't one of them.

Had I opened with "Interesting article, but tangentially..." then we'd still disagree, but maybe we could have avoided the straw-man ding. :)

You're right. Then we'd have a passive-aggressive ding. The only thing you would have to add to make it perfect would be "...but I'd never claim the author is trying to do that."

I wouldn't even call it passive-aggressive; it's soapboxing, plain and simple.

> This article is about X. But I don't care what the article says about X. I have something to say about X, and by God, I'm going to say it.

--But I don't know that this is a particularly problematic thing to be happening in a threaded comment system, since people can get sidetracked by "soapbox issues" in a subthread while letting the "parent conversation" continue around them. It's just kind of confusing for people who treat this place like a linear-chronological message-board that discusses one topic at a time.

I concur.

There are n-ways to join in a conversation, but the more direct experience you have, the better you will be able to field certain types of discussion. So, experts and expert debaters will dive right in and attack the topic head-on. More timid souls will wait in the wings and hope that someone will say something that they can directly respond to with confidence.

Sometimes you have to be slightly shameless if you want to join in a conversation. Stating an opinion (soap-boxing) does feel a bit like cheating the system. But I would argue its slightly better than standing on the sideline.

Honestly, if your opinions were at least novel, I probably wouldn't have said anything. I've heard the same old debate many times before and frankly, it gets old. Especially when people make tangentially-related topics into being about TDD. Can someone mention TDD in a blog post without dredging up all these old topics?

Ok, then. Let's put it in another way. TDD should be used by those who can afford it. Right? I don't think many startups can, that's the point I guess.

And _my_ point was that startups cannot afford _not_ to adopt TDD. TDD does not take time, it saves time. It saves time _today_.

With all due respect, I'd hope people would read Code Complete out of sheer interest, not signaling. CC is very accessible compared to other books you could be reading.

As for the time argument, I hear it, but I don't buy it. This is an institutional problem, and should be dealt with accordingly. Your responsibility is to advocate what can be done within the allotted timeframe. There's a time and a place for slapping things together and making it work, but it should never be 100% of the time.

If it is, it's a sick institution. And there are a lot of those.

I'm reading Code Complete right now. And I practice TDD. Though I wouldn't for a MVP or side project or proof of concept type project.

I would love to see a poll of how many people are in your position. I love being proved wrong by stats! (Edit: yes I get the irony that I made a baseless statement and then required the other side to provide stats to back up their arguments; {sigh} I'll try to do better.)

I previously worked in environments which were very stringent on things. Ex: I formerly worked on simulation software for fighter jets. So, there are definitely places where it makes sense, but it still think its minority. TDD is definitely better for VERY LARGE and SENSITIVE products and have long, ongoing development cycles involving large teams.

TDD is very valuable in the consumer web. Not because anyone's life is at risk but due to the speed at which customer confidence erodes when your product doesn't do what it's supposed to.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com