Should you follow TDD?

If you haven’t heard of TDD, it means Test Driven Development. What do I mean by that? Let’s talk about it today.

Let’s make sense

Test-driven development (aka TDD) is a three-step process. It’s often referred to as the “red, green, refactor cycle”

Let me explain the process:

• Red : It involves writing a function to test a feature which you’re going to add in the project/app. It’ll fail onbviously and you get a red error message.

• Green : Next up, we add the functionality/feature to the app in-order to pass the test and you get a green success message.

• Refactor : Now we need to look at the code and refactor it to ensure it’s well-written, and easy to read/understand.

You repeat the same process over and over again until you have added all the required functionality.

Bonus: Using this cycle saves you if you break something while implementing other functionalities.

When does it make sense?

• Utility Functions : If I’ve a function which has a certain set of inputs or ouputs, and of a certain complexity. I prefer setting up a test for it.

• Well defined UI : If I’m trying to achieve certain UI goals in my app, I prefer setting up a test for it.

• Fixing a bug : This also helps me in replicating the issue so that I can understand the problem better.

But when it doesn’t?

• When you’re learning about new features and implementation (aka exploratory coding), I wouldn’t follow this cycle.

• It is waste of your precious time if you’re testing the implementation details.

My conclusion

Go follow TDD if you believe you’ll be working on the project in the long run. Because I believe Time is an important resource, and you should utilize it to the fullest. Good luck!

Originally posted on: Vivek's Blog