Test Driven Development

Test Driven Development is about writing the test first before adding new functionality to the system. This seems backwards as first, but doing this:

  • Defines success up front.
  • Helps break our design down into little pieces, and
  • Leaves us with a nice suite of unit tests proving our stuff works.

Agile developers work in this circle of life when adding new code. Write the test first. Make it pass. Then refactor.

agile in a nutshell