[LRUG] TDD a waste of time? (was Re: [JOB] CTO and business partenership)

[Andrew Premdas]

On 17 May 2012 12:27, Chris Parsons <chris.p at rsons.org> wrote:

> On 17 May 2012, at 10:29, Kevin Monk wrote:
>
> Test coverage is err.... *sketchy*. I know this may be a heretical thing
> to say but in the early stages and with a *really small team,* the TDD
> and BDD were interrupting the process of discovery and creativity when in
> early development. We use Cucumber and RSpec but for our initial purposes
> build came before test and we've been burnt before from an over
> enthusiastic test coverage whilst the B in the BDD was still being hammered
> out.
>
>
> [snip]
>
> Having said all that, this is not a recalcitrant position. The product
> needs more test coverage now that it's rolling out as a Beta; partly for
> the reason that we need some regression testing. You may wish to consider
> this a technical challenge of the job. I'd genuinely welcome a dev that
> will teach me the error of my ways and I'd be more than happy to bask in
> the warm glow shining out of a GOOS TDD arse. It's cold out here. Show me
> how TDD can make my life better.
>
>
> OT to the original post, but I've seen this (quite understandable)
> argument a few times now in a few places, and thought it's about time I
> shared my point of view.
>
> I can totally understand the position: I'm running a startup myself, and
> it's very painful when developers are wheel-spinning maintaining detailed
> tests for features that might not last a week anyway. Many people give up
> on TDD and BDD because they find it too hard, or they're spending too much
> time changing tests.
>
> However, I just don't believe testing needs to be abandoned at any stage
> of the development. Often it's not testing that's at fault, but the tests
> we write.
>
> Firstly, Cucumber works best as a communication tool, not a testing tool.
> It's strength is in ensuring that people who don't read code can understand
> what our app is doing. Avoid all those gems that try and write highly
> reusable steps using regular expressions. They're not worth it. Regular
> expression aren't much fun to code in, and it's hard to trace code
> execution. If we use Cucumber, let's write small scenarios perhaps a few
> lines long. Avoid backgrounds. Don't reuse steps much. Write really short
> step definitions, calling into well factored shared module code to do the
> work, with methods like 'create_user', 'sign_in_to_app'. If we don't, our
> cukes will become difficult and extremely time-consuming to maintain very
> quickly [1].
>
>
+1

Cucumber is so often misused and misunderstood. You can keep things very
simple and do a tremendous amount with it. Following the advice above is a
really good start.

> Secondly, let's get good enough at TDD that we go faster if we write
> tests. This means practicing writing better tests and practicing
> refactoring. We need to learn how to spot duplication (*really* spotting
> duplication, of concepts not just code is really hard) and run our tests as
> often as we can (ideally several times a minute). We need to improve our
> tools and code so that our tests take no time to run (ideally under a
> second). We need to be prepared to go slower at first, but I believe it's
> worth it. Destroy All Software is a great resource for learning how to do
> TDD well [2].
>
> Thirdly, we don't need to write tests when we don't need to (but we need
> make sure that you *really* don't need to - do step 2 first :)
>
> For example: I put together a simple Sinatra app the other day, which had
> one post which checked a username/password:
>
>     get "/api/auth" do
>       halt 401 unless params[:user] = 'foo' && params[:password] = 'secr3t'
>       "OK"
>     end
>
> I did not write a test for this (shock! horror!): I instead tested it via
> two curl commands. I did what I needed it to; so left it alone for a few
> hours. When I came to add Warden authentication in (which I barely
> understood at the time) you bet I wrote tests. Test where the risk is:
> would you bet your entire reputation on the code working or not? If not,
> write tests.
>
> I should really write this up as a blog post. Feel free to disagree with
> any of it :)
>
> Chris
>
> [1] Plug: I'm talking about this at ScotRuby if you want to hear more (and
> probably running the cucumber course I do for the BBC publicly in the
> summer, too, if I can pull my finger out).
> [2] http://destroyallsoftware.com
>
> --
> Chris Parsons
> chris.p at rsons.org
> http://twitter.com/chrismdp
> http://pa.rsons.org
>
>
>
>
>
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>
>


-- 
------------------------
Andrew Premdas
blog.andrew.premdas.org
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