Is Test-Driven a fifth school?
Submitted by Antony Marcano on Thu, 26/05/2005 - 07:45.
context-driven testing | general software testing | test driven development
[textile]In Neill Mcarthy's post, "Which school of testing are you?":http://www.testingreflections.com/node/view/2202 he provides some of his perspective on the context-driven school. He also provides some links to excellent articles, in particular, Alan Richarson's "It Depends":http://www.compendiumdev.co.uk/context/index.php (although I think that Alan's quote "I was a teenage methodology monster" would also be a great title).
It reminded me of an unfinished discussion on the context-driven mailing list as to whether there is in fact a fifth school, i.e. the Test-Driven School... "Jonathan Kohl posts Cem's view on this":http://www.kohl.ca/blog/archives/000087.html. Bret agreed, that TDD was likely to be a 5th school.
At the time, I viewed TDD as a practice. I have had exposure to TDD since 2000, worked intensely on two TDD projects for the last 2 years and followed the blogs of many TDD experts. I have paired with TDD developers, I have even written my own unit tests in C# and Ruby and Acceptance Tests with C# using the Fit Framework. I still have much to learn, however, I couldn't see that it was a separate school. I think that was because I was trying to identify with it as either a school or a practice. I now believe that it is indeed both.
There are specific practices in TDD that are useful and valuable in numerous contexts. But, as Cem and Bret pointed out, there are principles behind it that people look to for guidance.
I now agree that TDD is a 5th school, that is complimented by a set of common TDD practices. I also believe that a person that shares the mind-set of the context-driven school can quite happily draw on TDD practices, without necessarily subscribing to all of the beliefs behind the TDD school.
I am looking forward to watching how the continuous growth in the community's collective understanding of the various schools grows and I commend Cem Kaner, Bret Pettichord and (let's not forget) James Bach for their ongoing contributions to this process.
It reminded me of an unfinished discussion on the context-driven mailing list as to whether there is in fact a fifth school, i.e. the Test-Driven School... "Jonathan Kohl posts Cem's view on this":http://www.kohl.ca/blog/archives/000087.html. Bret agreed, that TDD was likely to be a 5th school.
At the time, I viewed TDD as a practice. I have had exposure to TDD since 2000, worked intensely on two TDD projects for the last 2 years and followed the blogs of many TDD experts. I have paired with TDD developers, I have even written my own unit tests in C# and Ruby and Acceptance Tests with C# using the Fit Framework. I still have much to learn, however, I couldn't see that it was a separate school. I think that was because I was trying to identify with it as either a school or a practice. I now believe that it is indeed both.
There are specific practices in TDD that are useful and valuable in numerous contexts. But, as Cem and Bret pointed out, there are principles behind it that people look to for guidance.
I now agree that TDD is a 5th school, that is complimented by a set of common TDD practices. I also believe that a person that shares the mind-set of the context-driven school can quite happily draw on TDD practices, without necessarily subscribing to all of the beliefs behind the TDD school.
I am looking forward to watching how the continuous growth in the community's collective understanding of the various schools grows and I commend Cem Kaner, Bret Pettichord and (let's not forget) James Bach for their ongoing contributions to this process.