TDD Debate

Discussions debating the effectiveness, benefits, and drawbacks of Test-Driven Development (TDD) in software design, distinguishing it from general unit testing and sharing personal experiences.

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REPL JS CI CD ROI AI XP i.e microsoft.com E.g tdd tests test testing writing code write design development software

Sample Comments

akshatpradhan Nov 24, 2015 View on HN

How does TDD cause more harm than good in software design?

ilyt Jan 12, 2023 View on HN

TDD not really. Having tests help, writing them first is irrelevant

czardoz Feb 11, 2018 View on HN

Are you implying that TDD is bad in practice?

thrwyoilarticle Aug 19, 2022 View on HN

You don't need to be doing TDD to be writing tests!

jpindar Mar 11, 2015 View on HN

There's a difference between TDD and having unit tests!

lnxg33k1 Feb 12, 2023 View on HN

Not really, TDD helps you to think about what you're writing and even when you're prototyping from scratch gives you a good overview of the complexity of what you are writing, because you can't just finish a method that is few tens of lines long then try to test it, you write small test case, then you evolve the method that is being tested by the unit test and so on, and you can see when it's becoming too complex, I think some people just is not used to small methods whose re

SiliconVallet Oct 10, 2021 View on HN

Because TDD is dumb and actual hacking and development doesn't revolve around unit testing?

skywhopper Oct 28, 2025 View on HN

Who is arguing that TDD solves those problems with human coders?

mdpopescu Jun 29, 2017 View on HN

TLDR: TDD done badly doesn't work well.

jbverschoor Feb 17, 2022 View on HN

I think people confuse TDD with just writing tests