Test Driven Development vs Behavior Driven Development
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Summary of Video Transcript
- Topic: The video discusses the merits of Test-Driven Development (TDD) and Behavior-Driven Development (BDD), their differences, and when to use each approach.
- Speaker: Dave Farley, an advocate for continuous delivery.
- Background:
- TDD is a significant advancement in software development practices.
- BDD was created to address issues with TDD, focusing on behavior rather than tools.
- The speaker has a unique perspective on BDD, being present during its inception but not an inventor.
- TDD Origins:
- Named by Kent Beck in the late 1990s.
- Alan Perlis hinted at a TDD-like approach in 1968.
- Thoughtworks Experience:
- The speaker worked at Thoughtworks, where TDD was applied to all projects.
- A pattern emerged: projects that wrote tests after code often failed due to increasing difficulty in making progress.
- Test-First Importance:
- Writing tests after code leads to tests that are too tightly coupled to the implementation.
- Thoughtworks emphasized writing tests first, considering it the true essence of TDD.
- BDD Inception:
- Dan North and Chris Matts from Thoughtworks concluded that TDD was misunderstood and misapplied.
- BDD was created to teach TDD better, focusing on specifications and system behavior.
- BDD Evolution:
- BDD tools like Cucumber and SpecFlow popularized the approach but sometimes lost the original intent.
- BDD is not just about functional testing; it’s applicable at all levels of code.
- Common TDD Arguments:
- Tests are hard to write.
- Code is hard to change once tests are in place.
- TDD leads to poor design.
- BDD Approach to TDD Problems:
- Writing behavior-focused tests before code helps with design and makes tests less fragile.
- The speaker provides examples of tests from his projects to illustrate good design principles achieved through BDD-inspired TDD.
Detailed Instructions and URLs
- No specific CLI commands, website URLs, or detailed instructions were provided in the transcript.