Test Driven Development and Teenage Sex

Bob Silva — Wed, 06 Sep 2006 20:21:00 -0700

Twenty years ago, I learned about sex for the first time. All my friends said they were doing it, although I think most of them were full of it and just wanted to look cool. I didn't know much about sex back then but I'd read about it in The Joy of Sex and watched it on TV. There's something about actually doing it that you don't understand through those other mediums.

Learning about testing has been a very similar experience for me. I've known about it for awhile, all my programmer friends say they're doing it, and I've even read Test Driven Development By Example by Kent Beck. But doing it for the first time is a completely different experience. At first, I didn't know exactly what I was doing, I was aimlessly exploring the inputs and outputs, and before I knew it, I'd had my first testing orgasm. The tests I was writing discovered a serious bug in my code. That's when it clicked for me, really understanding what test driven development is about. If I had written the tests first, the specific bug they revealed wouldn't have existed in the first place.

Now that I've popped my testing cherry, I want to keep doing it, and much like my first sexual partner, Rails makes it easy. And when you get comfortable with your new partner, you can introduce great toys like ZenTest that will improve your experience.

I.NFECTIO.US: Tag tdd

Test Driven Development and Teenage Sex