Shanti’s Dispatches

I’ve come across many coders who have not properly planned their Greatist Hits of programming, per se.

Sit across from a group of coders at your average meetup, and ask them if they write tests first for their fun “side project”:

Dev #1: Well, y’know, I kind of just develop the code (without tests) as I go.
Dev #2: If I had more time, y’know… I’d write tests, and stuff.

This mirrors my own tinkerings. I’m not saying there’s anything wrong with Test-Driven Development or that it’s in any way inferior to Cowboy Method (TM).

I’m just saying… a lot of hackers… hackers in the wild, do not tend to follow TDD when tinkering on their own fun projects.

I would add tests… but I might change this later, and then I’d have to change the tests, too.

Ah screw it. I’ll just code it up and get the darn thing working first…

A lot of these projects end up being the del.icio.uses, YouTubes and Scribds of the world.