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Skipping testing amounts to risk. The winners in a brutal race take every risk to win.

So yes, its foolish to skip testing. And yes, the race goes to the foolish.

The winners in a brutal race have learned how to avoid as much risk as possible. The prize does not go to the biggest risker. The prize goes to those who do everything they can to minimize the risk of going slow.

What slows a programmer down? Debugging. Messy code. Fear of change. How do you minimize those risks? A comprehensive suite of tests. How do you get that suite? TDD.

And you come in 2nd or 3rd in the race, and lose.

That is certainly your fear. It is a fear I don't share. Firstly, I think you'll get there faster if you work well. Secondly, as MySpace showed, being first isn't really all it's cracked up to be.

Im not making myself clear. You might beat me, personally, once. But you won't beat that one lucky guy that didn't do the testing, got his code to work the 1st time, and got to market before either one of us. That's how the game's played. Conservative, careful, correct coders don't win that game.

And if your business plan is to be 2nd to market, well, good luck with that.

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