Test Driven Development (TDD), aka red, green, refactor. I have spent the last year creating projects using this method and these are my big takeaways.
TDD takes some getting used to. When I was first learning to code I was struggling to not only understand how the code worked but why it worked the way it did. If you're a rails dev you are probably very familiar with binding.pry. I was the Pry King always picking a part my code line by line and testing to see how it worked, what variables I had access to, just trying to see what I could see in the code.
But once I learned to use both of those tools together, I felt so much more direct in my code. I was able to organize my code so much better and adhere to the single responsibility principle (SRP).
It is so satisfying to write a test, run it, write the code, run it and watching the tests turn from red to green. It honestly makes me so happy.
TLDR - TDD makes coding more effective and intentional. Helps with the clarity and readability of the code. Exhibits developer empathy and is great for documentation. Definitely worth learning how to do.
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