In our first, “Share your TDD horror stories” event last Tuesday, October 30th, the turnout was quite “spooktacular”. It was the Stelligent staff who came dressed in costumes for the occasion, but it was the non-dressed in attendance that put on a good show in conversation around TDD scares.

One theme that was hammered throughout the night was that expertise in TDD begins to materialize at the point where the developer realizes that it’s not about testing, but about defining behavior.

Another observation I found interesting was that TDD design work encourages the reduction of cyclomatic complexity (CC); ultimately making test fixtures more readable and maintainable….and as Andrew Glover noted earlier this year:

Projects that carry out TDD will find their code bases are rarely flagged for high cyclomatic complexity values.

You’ll want to check out the results from a survey we handed out– I wasn’t surprised to find out that 84% in attendance said that their organization does NOT actively practice TDD. The most likely culprit in the adoption rate is the general resistance to change; those who prefer the comfort of the tried and tested. To help pacify this opposition, basic education is key before most will be able to initiate/succeed with it.

Many thanks to everyone for coming and a special thanks to Savoy-Lee for the terrorific selection of fine wines.