Test-Driven Development and Design Patterns

Last month, in my conversation with Scott Bain on Impediments to TDD, I wanted to explore how he was incorporating TDD and Design Patterns, two areas of particular expertise for Scott. That is the topic of today's conversation.

Overcoming Impediments to Test-Driven Development

Recently, I had the chance to sit down with Scott Bain, author of Emergent Design and an expert in Test-Driven Development. He wanted to talk about what he has seen as impediments to implementing Test-Driven Development: impediments that arise before an organization decides to adopt TDD and impediments that arise after adopting TDD. He bases this on his conversations with clients who are in the midst of implementing TDD, on his coaching experience, and on own personal journey with TDD has he has incorporated the concepts into Net Objectives training in Design Patterns, TDD, and Analysis.

What is design? When do you do it? How much to you do? And how do you begin?  

As teachers of Design Patterns and TDD, David Bernstein and I are often asking these questions. Invariably, we include the notion that one engages in "design" (not necessarily up front design, mind you) as a way to mitigate risk, among other things.

But which risks? Can you mitigate all risks? Do you even know all the risks that you might need to address in design? In most cases, the answer is almost certainly "No."

Lean-Agile and Project Management - Part 1

On Lean-Agile Straight Talk, we have taken a fair amount of time working through the basic dimensions of Lean-Agile product development: Lean Principles, Agile Processes, and Technical Practices. We have talked in general about how we got here and why it is important. We have laid enough foundation and can dive down a bit.  read more »

Embrace Change through Patterns

Perhaps one of the benefits of Agile is that you can get frequent, almost constant validation of what we are doing. In waterfall approaches, it too often happens that after a Plan-Do-Review cycle, the review results in bad news: something is wrong. Now, we have to go back and re-work a bunch of stuff. That is wasted effort.  read more »

Lean-Agile, the Senior Developer, and Progressing toward Maturity

Sometimes, as a coach, you encounter a team who knows their domain really well. They have been developing applications in this space for a long time. They may not see the need to change to a new method, when the usual approach has worked just fine, thank you.  read more »

Does testing make your OO project take longer?

Seeing QA's as allies

QA and testing

Do you use Quality Assurance in your coding practice? How do you use it? And when? And why? What drives you to do testing when you do it?

Notes from Agile 2006 and Comments on Testing

Agile 2006 the conference has come and gone. It was a good and eye-opening experience for me. I had lots of great conversations in the Net Objectives booth and over coffee. I got to help lead a session or two. And I had fun with customers and colleagues. All for something I really believe in, this connection between lean product development, agile software development, and technical skills, supported by lean management systems and tools.  read more »