TDD — Test Driven Development
Por Raysa Alanés
Why do we practice TDD in Grupo Esfera?
At Grupo Esfera's work teams, we encourage applying TDD (Test-Driven Development) because we consider it a valuable practice that allows us to develop software in a controlled environment. It is worth clarifying that it is a design technique, not a testing technique.
This technical practice was popularized by Kent Beck in the '90s in his book “Extreme Programming Explained”, and today, organizations like ours that work with agile frameworks consider it indispensable to ensure the quality of the products we develop.
How does Test Driven Development (TDD) work?
The process consists of starting by creating a test that will verify the solution we want to implement. The idea is for the test to initially fail (since an implementation does not yet exist), driving us to write the minimal amount of code to make the test pass. Once the test passes, the technique suggests refactoring (optimizing the previously written code through changes to its internal structure without altering its intended functionality); then, we must write a test that causes the previous implementation to no longer be enough. This will lead us to build our solution step by step.
The previous cycle will repeat when adding a new test that covers something new we want to implement, making the process iterative and incremental, and causing our solution to grow as the tests grow.
What are the benefits of this technique?
From our practical experience with TDD, we can highlight several benefits of applying the technique: it avoids writing unnecessary code, code quality increases and consequently product quality does too, by having full test coverage of what has been implemented.
It is a technique that contributes to the emergent design of the product and provides greater confidence when refactoring or altering the implementation due to being in a controlled environment.
A valuable aspect of test-first techniques (TDD, BDD, ATDD) is that they allow for an upfront analysis to foresee "What for?" we are building, giving us the opportunity to anticipate and validate whether we understand what needs to be developed—the outcome of this is that communication between the development team and the client will improve.
Like any discipline, it will require practice to turn it into a habit, but as we have seen, the benefits of applying it are numerous. Leveraging its maximum potential will yield positive results not only regarding the product, but also in terms of our growth as developers.
To gain a deeper understanding of this technique, in addition to the book mentioned above, we also recommend “Test-Driven Development by Example” by Kent Beck and “Diseño Ágil con TDD” (Agile Design with TDD) by Carlos Blé.
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At Grupo Esfera, we help your team adopt TDD.
If you want your team to adopt TDD as a sustained practice (and not just a good intention), Grupo Esfera can help you. Through our Digital Evolution service, we work shoulder to shoulder with your developers to instantiate and sustain technical practices like this one, strengthening skills and eliminating risks in the process. Learn more about this service.
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