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Test Driven Development

By Marcus Baker
2004-01-25

Test then Code then Design
I am happy with the code now. It works. I could improve the clarity a little by placing the regular expression tests into their own named functions, but it doesn't seem worth it. Note that I am still trying to design even at this stage. If the main method were to get longer, I would certainly break it down for the sake of clarity.

Conventional wisdom is on it's head here. By using tests locally we get all the benefits of testing, but get them immediately while we are actually working on the problem. Why wait until you have made loads of mistakes before correcting them? Fix them while they are fresh. Why try to come up with grand designs only to find that they are impractical? If you cannot get there from a working solution, chances are you cannot get there at all.

After two years of coding this way, if I am ever in that interview I will give a different answer now. "Test, code then design" If they ask me what happened to the debug phase I have only one answer...

"What's debugging?"



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