Reflections on “Is TDD Dead”

The first thing I noticed that I needed to change as a result of watching the Is TDD Dead? series is that I started out with a defensive mindset. If I believe in the dogma of a rule, then presumably I’m still a beginner who hasn’t yet learned that there are other rules, each of which has limited applicability. So lesson one is to practise more, to find the limitations of the techniques I use, and to understand what to do when those limits are met.

An unsurprising aspect of the discussion was that the thing I call TDD is not the thing that others call TDD. At some point recently I got converted to the Mockist school. Part of me (the part that doesn’t value my social life) is inclined to write a second edition of test-driven iOS development but then keep both editions available, because the style will have changed so much between the two.

Anyway it is more germane to note that none of the three speakers has a lot of time for mocks. I need to understand this, the experiences they have had that I have not, and the things that I do not know about mocks. Perhaps they view the sorts of tests that I build as the structural tests that they would delete once the system is working.

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