I built an "awesome" API with 12 parameters.
It was garbage.
Nobody could use it without a PhD in my brain.
After years of backend development, I learned Test Driven Development (TDD) the hard way. I was coding deep in the weeds, adding parameter after parameter because I needed the data.
When I finally wrote tests, reality hit:
Callers didn't have half the info I required
My "beautiful" API was unusable
I'd forgotten the most important person: the user
TDD flips this backwards thinking.
You write tests for code you wish existed. Then build code to pass those tests.
Red → Green → Refactor. Repeat.
It forces you to think like your caller, not your compiler.
The best part? It saves massive debugging time later. Those test cases become your safety net when libraries update or teammates make changes.
"If it's worth building, it's worth testing. If it's not worth testing, why waste time..."
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