
The Flawed Theory Behind Unit Testing - kirubakaran
http://michaelfeathers.typepad.com/michael_feathers_blog/2008/06/the-flawed-theo.html
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papersmith
Nice article, but provocative title.

Essentially it comes down to that TDD works mainly because it forces you to
think about the implementation more clearly before you begin coding, while the
various benefits of automation come as a bonus.

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xirium
Is Clean Room Software Development orthogonal to Test Driven Development or
not? Clean Room minimises tests; Test Driven maximises tests. Clean Room
minimises side-effects when code is written; Test Driven minimises side-
effects when code is changed.

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Flemlord
I think I agree with this. We do TDD and the first test we write for a new
module is usually a high-level test that walks entirely through the process,
touching several classes or libraries. Then we write smaller tests, working
our way down to fine-grained level with multiple tests for individual
classes/functions. We catch errors at every level, and the end result is
(usually) clean, bug-free code.

My understanding is that this is frowned upon from a TDD purist standpoint.
Our high-level tests that touch lots of areas of code probably wouldn't be
written in most shops.

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pbnaidu
Well, shouldn't the quality be defined first. Quality differs based on
situations, people, etc.

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donw
Talk to Phaedrus about that one.

