Comments on: The first 2 hours of TDD are the most painful http://lostechies.com/chadmyers/2008/02/13/the-first-2-hours-of-tdd-are-the-most-painful/ Software development, testing, and techie life Thu, 08 Mar 2012 22:19:00 +0000 hourly 1 http://wordpress.org/?v=3.4.2 By: joeyDotNet http://lostechies.com/chadmyers/2008/02/13/the-first-2-hours-of-tdd-are-the-most-painful/#comment-111 joeyDotNet Mon, 18 Feb 2008 20:01:34 +0000 /blogs/chad_myers/archive/2008/02/12/the-first-2-hours-of-tdd-are-the-most-painful.aspx#comment-111 And since we're in a C# 3.0 world now, don't forget... x.ShouldEqual(y); :-D And since we’re in a C# 3.0 world now, don’t forget…

x.ShouldEqual(y);

:-D

]]> By: Jimmy Bogard http://lostechies.com/chadmyers/2008/02/13/the-first-2-hours-of-tdd-are-the-most-painful/#comment-110 Jimmy Bogard Mon, 18 Feb 2008 11:32:53 +0000 /blogs/chad_myers/archive/2008/02/12/the-first-2-hours-of-tdd-are-the-most-painful.aspx#comment-110 @Johan Underneath the covers, Assert.AreEqual calls Assert.That. I disagree that Assert.AreEqual reads better. Assert that x is equal to y. Assert are equal y x. You're right though, it really doesn't matter. @Johan

Underneath the covers, Assert.AreEqual calls Assert.That.

I disagree that Assert.AreEqual reads better.

Assert that x is equal to y.

Assert are equal y x.

You’re right though, it really doesn’t matter.

]]> By: Johan Söderberg http://lostechies.com/chadmyers/2008/02/13/the-first-2-hours-of-tdd-are-the-most-painful/#comment-109 Johan Söderberg Mon, 18 Feb 2008 08:55:35 +0000 /blogs/chad_myers/archive/2008/02/12/the-first-2-hours-of-tdd-are-the-most-painful.aspx#comment-109 Assert.AreEqual(y,x) is easier to read and follow, when you read from left to right you see what's done before you get to the variables. Assert.That(x, Is.EqualTo(y)) is nastier, you need to remember what it's doing when you get to the variables and you need to keep track of another thing (it actually does two things). Not that it matters much though. ;) KISS! Assert.AreEqual(y,x) is easier to read and follow, when you read from left to right you see what’s done before you get to the variables.

Assert.That(x, Is.EqualTo(y)) is nastier, you need to remember what it’s doing when you get to the variables and you need to keep track of another thing (it actually does two things).

Not that it matters much though. ;)

KISS!

]]> By: J.P. Hamilton http://lostechies.com/chadmyers/2008/02/13/the-first-2-hours-of-tdd-are-the-most-painful/#comment-108 J.P. Hamilton Sun, 17 Feb 2008 03:00:35 +0000 /blogs/chad_myers/archive/2008/02/12/the-first-2-hours-of-tdd-are-the-most-painful.aspx#comment-108 Chad, I gotta say that the one thing I appreciate about both you and Ray is the honesty. When you talk about your trials and tribulations with TDD, honestly I feel relief. I guess I am not the only one who has struggles with this stuff. I was THIS close to driving up from Houston to participate in the CodingDojo. I am really sorry I didn't make it. Maybe I heard wrong, but there is going to be another one, right? I hope so. Chad, I gotta say that the one thing I appreciate about both you and Ray is the honesty. When you talk about your trials and tribulations with TDD, honestly I feel relief. I guess I am not the only one who has struggles with this stuff. I was THIS close to driving up from Houston to participate in the CodingDojo. I am really sorry I didn’t make it. Maybe I heard wrong, but there is going to be another one, right? I hope so.

]]> By: Chad Myers http://lostechies.com/chadmyers/2008/02/13/the-first-2-hours-of-tdd-are-the-most-painful/#comment-107 Chad Myers Thu, 14 Feb 2008 03:14:17 +0000 /blogs/chad_myers/archive/2008/02/12/the-first-2-hours-of-tdd-are-the-most-painful.aspx#comment-107 @Jason: Good stuff, thanks. That follows along mostly with what I've been doing, so it's reassuring to know I'm not doing it totally wrong :) @Derick: Great post! Subscribed! @Dave^2: I plan on it. When Jeremy isn't looking, I'll be jotting notes down furiously. I may even secretly record the audio and screen so I can play it all back later in my mind. Shh, don't tell him. @Jimmy (Bogard): Honestly, I don't know how I ever did testing before that naming style. Sure, the context thing is still being sorted out, but doing it any other way usually ended in quick failure for me. TestSomething1, TestSomething2, TestSomething3 quickly grows tedious and seems futile. Remember, the point of this was to explore TDD, and trying to figure out BDD contexts is a part of that. When I saw my first nunit-spec report from my tests, the light turned on in my head. I never went back. http://tinyurl.com/2tmoa4 @Jason:
Good stuff, thanks. That follows along mostly with what I’ve been doing, so it’s reassuring to know I’m not doing it totally wrong :)

@Derick:
Great post! Subscribed!

@Dave^2:
I plan on it. When Jeremy isn’t looking, I’ll be jotting notes down furiously. I may even secretly record the audio and screen so I can play it all back later in my mind. Shh, don’t tell him.

@Jimmy (Bogard):
Honestly, I don’t know how I ever did testing before that naming style. Sure, the context thing is still being sorted out, but doing it any other way usually ended in quick failure for me. TestSomething1, TestSomething2, TestSomething3 quickly grows tedious and seems futile.

Remember, the point of this was to explore TDD, and trying to figure out BDD contexts is a part of that.

When I saw my first nunit-spec report from my tests, the light turned on in my head. I never went back.
http://tinyurl.com/2tmoa4

]]> By: Jimmy Bogard http://lostechies.com/chadmyers/2008/02/13/the-first-2-hours-of-tdd-are-the-most-painful/#comment-106 Jimmy Bogard Thu, 14 Feb 2008 00:40:00 +0000 /blogs/chad_myers/archive/2008/02/12/the-first-2-hours-of-tdd-are-the-most-painful.aspx#comment-106 So unfortunately the style you saw me doing was a style I'm experimenting with, not the style I've worked with for years. The BDD style is still pretty new and there isn't a lot of direction out there (especially when the best source is deleted and gone). I have a feeling we did a disservice introducing that style in that context... So unfortunately the style you saw me doing was a style I’m experimenting with, not the style I’ve worked with for years. The BDD style is still pretty new and there isn’t a lot of direction out there (especially when the best source is deleted and gone). I have a feeling we did a disservice introducing that style in that context…

]]> By: Dave^2 http://lostechies.com/chadmyers/2008/02/13/the-first-2-hours-of-tdd-are-the-most-painful/#comment-105 Dave^2 Wed, 13 Feb 2008 22:17:29 +0000 /blogs/chad_myers/archive/2008/02/12/the-first-2-hours-of-tdd-are-the-most-painful.aspx#comment-105 "It was truly great to see people whom I thought had TDD down cold, experience some of the same problems..." "[TDD is] a practice which has been proven, through experience of many..." Was reading these two quotes from your post and suddenly thought: what if everyone is having problems with TDD? We each think we have a unique problem cause we are struggling and assume that everyone else is doing it right and has proven it successful? Kinda funny to think that JP and one or two Codebetter guys are the only ones who can get it to work :-) I'm getting more successful with TDD for my personal projects, but am having trouble translating it to the style of apps we normally do at work. I am confident it *can* work, but don't know enough yet to help the team through an end-to-end TDD'd project. I think the reason some people struggle is that it is very difficult to gain proficiency with TDD without mentoring or a team working together on learning the technique. I've read all the books, done the examples, and packed my RSS reader full of TDDer's blogs, but none of this helps when you get stuck on your specific problem and have no one to bounce ideas off. Please please please -- when you start on with Jeremy and become the 4th person in the world to learn TDD, remember us un-mentored TDDers battling away and pass on everything you can :-) ;-) “It was truly great to see people whom I thought had TDD down cold, experience some of the same problems…”
“[TDD is] a practice which has been proven, through experience of many…”

Was reading these two quotes from your post and suddenly thought: what if everyone is having problems with TDD? We each think we have a unique problem cause we are struggling and assume that everyone else is doing it right and has proven it successful? Kinda funny to think that JP and one or two Codebetter guys are the only ones who can get it to work :-)

I’m getting more successful with TDD for my personal projects, but am having trouble translating it to the style of apps we normally do at work. I am confident it *can* work, but don’t know enough yet to help the team through an end-to-end TDD’d project.

I think the reason some people struggle is that it is very difficult to gain proficiency with TDD without mentoring or a team working together on learning the technique. I’ve read all the books, done the examples, and packed my RSS reader full of TDDer’s blogs, but none of this helps when you get stuck on your specific problem and have no one to bounce ideas off.

Please please please — when you start on with Jeremy and become the 4th person in the world to learn TDD, remember us un-mentored TDDers battling away and pass on everything you can :-) ;-)

]]> By: Mike Moore http://lostechies.com/chadmyers/2008/02/13/the-first-2-hours-of-tdd-are-the-most-painful/#comment-104 Mike Moore Wed, 13 Feb 2008 21:09:45 +0000 /blogs/chad_myers/archive/2008/02/12/the-first-2-hours-of-tdd-are-the-most-painful.aspx#comment-104 @Christopher Thank you for the clarification. I think we disagree about OO, but if we frame the discussion by your description I think your statement holds. I would add that you can use encapsulation, polymorphism, and inheritance and still not be OO. I continue to be puzzled by my observations of the .NET community's desire to subject themselves to their tools. And now I will add "language features" to that list. While you can solve the problem of managing TDD complexity by adding additional "features" to the language, I submit that you can also solve the problem by using a stronger language. @Christopher Thank you for the clarification. I think we disagree about OO, but if we frame the discussion by your description I think your statement holds. I would add that you can use encapsulation, polymorphism, and inheritance and still not be OO.

I continue to be puzzled by my observations of the .NET community’s desire to subject themselves to their tools. And now I will add “language features” to that list. While you can solve the problem of managing TDD complexity by adding additional “features” to the language, I submit that you can also solve the problem by using a stronger language.

]]> By: Christopher Bennage http://lostechies.com/chadmyers/2008/02/13/the-first-2-hours-of-tdd-are-the-most-painful/#comment-103 Christopher Bennage Wed, 13 Feb 2008 20:46:02 +0000 /blogs/chad_myers/archive/2008/02/12/the-first-2-hours-of-tdd-are-the-most-painful.aspx#comment-103 @Mike OO is an approach to programming. Just because a language has OO features, doesn't mean your code is automatically OO. Likewise, you can use OO in languages that don't explicitly, or entirely, support it (plain old C, or javascript even.) Microsoft's AJAX tries pretty hard to make javascript feel more OO. It boils down to the use of OO techniques such as encapsulation, polymorphism, and inheritance. Similar arguments can be made about functional programming. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Object-oriented_programming @Mike
OO is an approach to programming. Just because a language has OO features, doesn’t mean your code is automatically OO. Likewise, you can use OO in languages that don’t explicitly, or entirely, support it (plain old C, or javascript even.) Microsoft’s AJAX tries pretty hard to make javascript feel more OO.
It boils down to the use of OO techniques such as encapsulation, polymorphism, and inheritance.
Similar arguments can be made about functional programming.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Object-oriented_programming

]]> By: Mike Moore http://lostechies.com/chadmyers/2008/02/13/the-first-2-hours-of-tdd-are-the-most-painful/#comment-102 Mike Moore Wed, 13 Feb 2008 20:07:57 +0000 /blogs/chad_myers/archive/2008/02/12/the-first-2-hours-of-tdd-are-the-most-painful.aspx#comment-102 @Christopher You said, "the same way that OO is now a language feature." What exactly do you think OO was "before" if not a language feature? @Christopher You said, “the same way that OO is now a language feature.” What exactly do you think OO was “before” if not a language feature?

]]>