We live in a world that is moving rapidly. Businesses are constantly changing – and so are business requirements for software applications. Over the last decade Agile development methodology has become more influential. The trend towards continuous delivery requires greater efficiency in the process and many developers are relying on automated unit tests, or pushing further into Test-Driven Development (TDD). This ensures that business value is delivered to the customer at frequent intervals, working at a sustainable pace.
Making one modification in a traditionally developed application can wreak havoc in ways that are difficult to predict.
What are the benefits of Test Driven Development?
In TDD, the tests are written from the perspective of a class’s public interface. This means that they focus on the class’ behavior, not its implementation. Programmers write each test before the corresponding production code. Their attention will focus on creating interfaces that are easy to use rather than easy to implement, which improves the design of the interface.
The surface-level benefit is a higher-quality system: with every feature comprehensively unit tested, TDD can help produce software with significantly lower defects.
Running these tests gives you fast confirmation of whether your code behaves as it should.
Advantages of Test Driven Development (TDD):
Cut development costs
An effective, organized and neat code that works
Shorten the development Time to Market
Encourage the writing of quality code
Increase the programmer’s productivity
Shorten the development feedback time
Provide unmistakable proof that your software code works as intended
Test driven development can reduce the total cost of ownership of an application. New developers on the team will be able to change the code without fear of breaking something important. Therefore, the application will have fewer defects, reducing the need for manual QA and testing.
Software is intended to deliver business value, and test driven development will help you write higher quality, more maintainable software that can be changed at the fast pace of the business.
What do you think about TDD?
Do you use TDD technique?