Epilogue

In 2005, while attending the Agile conference in Denver, Elisabeth Hedrickson¹ handed me a green wrist band similar to the kind that Lance Armstrong made so popular. This one said “Test Obsessed” on it. I gladly put it on and wore it proudly. Since learning TDD from Kent Beck in 1999, I have indeed become obsessed with test-driven development.

1. http://www.qualitytree.com/

But then something strange happened. I found I could not take the band off. Not because it was physically stuck, but because it was morally stuck. The band made an overt statement about my professional ethics. It was a visible indication of my committment to writing the best code I could write. Taking it off seemed like a betrayal of those ethics and of that committment.

So it is on my wrist still. When I write code, I see it there in my peripheral vision. It is a constant reminder of the promise I made to myself to write clean code.