Does writing software backwards really improve quality?
By Grant Lammi, Seapine Software One of the biggest challenges of adopting Test-Driven Development (TDD) surprisingly is not technical. Instead it is often the psychological challenges that cause TDD to be used poorly or not adopted at all. For developers, writing in a TDD style can be akin to signing their name with the wrong hand. While it is certainly possible to make the signature look the same, it takes more time and concentration because it just feels unnatural. Furthermore, the idea of writing test code in order to exercise production code is already strange enough for most developers. The situation can then seem downright bizarre when coupled with writing test code BEFORE the application code. Frequently, developers are also reluctant to accept a method that requires them to write more code than they did previously. This stems not only from the age-old programming adage that less code is better code, but also from a fear that the new method could jeopardize already tight schedu
