Setup

You’ve learned the who, what, how, why, and when of TDD. If you continue to practice TDD regularly to the point where you’re convinced of its benefits, you’ll someday become test-infected^[30]—you’ll insist on using it as your primary programming tool. You’ll quickly realize, however, that not everyone feels that way. Even if you’re part of a team that’s supposed to be test-driving your code, you’ll find varying levels of adherence and support. You’ll also encounter resistance and apathy, often based on lack of information. And even if your team is able to surmount the initial hurdle of getting everyone on board, you’ll find it a challenge to keep things from degrading over time—much like your codebase. Sustaining TDD is not easy.

This chapter provides you with an assortment of ideas to help you sustain your ability to practice TDD. You’ll learn about the following:

• How to respond to inquiries about and challenges to TDD

• Overviews of studies demonstrating benefits attained by using TDD

• How to avoid the “bad test death spiral”

• How to employ pair programming to sustain and review TDD efforts

• How to use katas and dojos to better your practice of TDD

• How to avoid abuse of code coverage metrics

• How continuous integration is an essential foundation for TDD

• Questions to help you derive standards for TDD practice

• Where to go for more information about community TDD practice