maiden speech - test driven development

[Todd Sedano]

Short version: what would you tell someone who was trying to improve at ______ ?  (see last sentence of email)

This last fall at SCNA in Chicago, I presented findings from my class "The Craft of Software Development" where each master student studying software engineering created a learning plan designed to work on an area of known weakness to further themselves in our craft. I appreciated the community's feedback about my class. (If you don't remember me, we also did some dancing at the start of my session. You were magnificant.) 

This year, I'm asking for your input on my students' learning plans. If you have personal experience in one of these learning areas (or have guided an apprentice), I'd love to get your input. 

What is something that has worked for you to become more of an expert in the named area? 

(I've debated how to present this request to this group. There are eight topics. Perhaps it is better to have one email with everyone replying to it. Perhaps it is better to have eight email threads where people who only care about TDD can just offer advice on how to get better at TDD. Because there hasn't been a lot of traffic on this mailing list recently, I've decided to post four emails today and four emails tomorrow. If this was a colossal lack of judgement on my part, please mute any thread that you aren't interested in. And I'm sorry.) 

I really appreciate your time and input, 

Todd Sedano
Director of Software Engineering
Carnegie Mellon University
Silicon Valley Campus
Developing Software Leaders (TM)
T: 650-335-2812

For me Software Craftsmanship includes the notion of 'Test-driven development'. I have always written unit tests after writing the code. So TDD literally turned my software development model upside down. I am trying to use TDD but when I face a complex software problem, I find myself reverting back to code first and test later. This is mostly because my productivity is severely hampered due to my lack of experience in thinking the TDD way. What does the community think will help me improve in this area?

[Curtis Cooley]

On Thu, Mar 22, 2012 at 4:15 PM, Todd Sedano <todd....@sv.cmu.edu> wrote:
> For me Software Craftsmanship includes the notion of 'Test-driven
> development'. I have always written unit tests after writing the code. So
> TDD literally turned my software development model upside down. I am trying
> to use TDD but when I face a complex software problem, I find myself
> reverting back to code first and test later. This is mostly because my
> productivity is severely hampered due to my lack of experience in thinking
> the TDD way. What does the community think will help me improve in this
> area?
>

Practice practice practice.

Find a catalogue of katas and do one everyday for a week. Focus on
picking the next smallest test. My guess is you'll do well with the
first couple of trivial tests, then write a big test and hash around
until it passes. When you find yourself hashing around, stop, delete
the test, and look for a test that lets you take a smaller step.

This blog will take you step by step through how to pick the "right"
next test. http://thecleancoder.blogspot.com/2010/10/craftsman-62-dark-path.html
--
Curtis Cooley
curtis...@gmail.com
blog:http://ponderingobjectorienteddesign.blogspot.com
===============
Leadership is a potent combination of strategy and character. But if
you must be without one, be without the strategy.
-- H. Norman Schwarzkopf

[Jon Jagger]

And
http://www.cyber-dojo.com
should help you practice.
Cheers
Jon
P.S. Love the Schwarzkopf quote Curtis

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--
CyberDojo - a game-server for practising the collaborative game called
software development.
Explained at http://jonjagger.blogspot.com/p/cyberdojo.html
Open-sourced at http://github.com/JonJagger/cyberdojo
Server probably at http://www.cyber-dojo.com
Video of Roman Numerals kata in Ruby at http://vimeo.com/15104374

[Jos Flores]

The 'Why' tab in Jon's cyber-dojo is a great example of reflective
practice, and such higher-order thinking skills would be beneficial to
improve on pretty much any topic.
It also highlights very important points such as deliberate practice
needing to be free of that 'on the job' attitude towards finishing
tasks ([...] my productivity is severely hampered [...]), and
collaboration.

cheers,
José

[Doug Bradbury]

To improve at TDD, practice!  Remove yourself from needed to accomplish something for a teacher (or professor) and tackle a problem with strict adherence to the three laws of TDD. (http://butunclebob.com/ArticleS.UncleBob.TheThreeRulesOfTdd)

Katas (practicing someone else's solution to a problem) is a fantastic way to practice, as are code retreats.

It's helpfully to remove yourself from the problem you are trying to solve itself to practice just the technique.