This
article/survey inspired me for this post.
Extreme Programming has been around for the
last 10 years but there is still a minority of people using it on a daily basis and I fear
it will always be a minority.
I consider myself an addict to
TDD. I won't explain what it is... I hope you already get
the picture.
When I discovered it I got the
"Woh !" feeling. At least a technique to write code with less bugs !
I tried (and in some case succeed) at doing some TDD evangelism.
My first opinion was that it was just a matter of
educating people, I never learn this technique at school, neither in the enterprises I worked for... I learned it by reading blogs/books and so on.
But
despite my efforts it seems it always ends-up in some sort of
"rotten state".
The tests end up disable to do refactoring, people don't write tests first because they are stress and/or just want the thing done or other valid reasons in the sort term.
Developers just want immediate feedback and people always choose the
"Path of least resistance". Doing tests is just harder because you have to face other problems ("how do I isolate my tests", "how do I avoid depending on a database", "I need to change my api to make it testable"...)
I think it's just human nature and human nature just don't change.Take this extract from
Jackob Nielsen usability guideline:
Overall, though, whether you look at application or website guidelines, usability guidelines remain remarkably stable across decades. That's because they depend on human characteristics, which don't change that much.
That why I dropped the evangelism thing :(
I just use this technique for me, show it to others and even explain it if I feel the person is responsive to it. May be some will find it useful but I doubt it will become the main way to code... Too bad :(
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