The TDD rhythm at the dojos

[Ron Romero]

I've been thinking about Sunkant's comments from the last Dojo.  One of the things he said was that we've all pretty much got the concept of TDD down, and we should let up on the didactic emphasis on TDD and take the time to explore other areas.  I'm not quite ready to give up entirely on TDD, but I agree that we need to stop pushing it so hard.

With that in mind, I suggest a slight change in structure to the Dojos.  Right now we do Green-Refactor-Red-Pass keyboard.  That creates a context switch (and chair switch) for every test, which really does slow things down.  I've found personally that TDD can settle into a very fast development rhythm, but we break that rhythm at the Dojos.  It also makes it odd because picking tests and solving them are disjointed.  We've learned that you should pick a test based on the next bit of code you want to write.  By passing the keyboard at every failed test, we lose connection between tests and solutions.

Most other Dojos use a timed approach to passing the keyboard.  I think that would let us focus on the problem, and let someone get fully into the pattern of TDD on each section.  It would also make the amount of time each participant gets more even. 

Whatcha think?  Shall we try that on Wednesday?

Ron

[Gregory Symons]

I think that's an interesting idea. I say we go for it. I propose
something along the lines of 25 minutes (i.e., a standard pomodoro:)
between passes, though that's just pulled out of a hat.

--
Greg Symons