TDD

In a previous post I wrote about taking a Test-Driven approach to Camel development. I've been asked to share the code and explain some of the steps in more detail so here we go...

The other morning I attended an excellent talk by Andrew Richardson on the importance of having small goals. One of the points Andrew made was that completing a task, however small, triggers a hit of Dopamine - the neurotransmitter associated with feelings of pleasure and satisfaction. The way Andrew described the feedback loop involved reminded me of Test-Driven Development (TDD). This got me thinking - maybe this is why I like it so much?

I’m giving some training next week on Contract Driven Development using Postman. There’s been a couple of hurdles to overcome to get to a workflow that I feel is efficient so I thought I’d share in the hopes that a) this might help someone else or b) someone could point out a better way to do this!

Recently I've been working with a team integrating Fraud Detection software into our Core Banking System (CBS). This involves sending messages asynchronously between the systems. We are using Apache Camel for this as opposed to our standard integration platform IBM AppConnect. One of the things that make Camel attractive is its first-class support for a Test Driven Development approach. Camel allows us to incrementally evolve our integration code using tests to drive the approach. This is very cool. That said, it's not been exactly easy so whilst it's still fresh in my head I thought I would put down some points about how to make this work in your own projects.

The other day I read an article by Ian Sommerville describing his experiences with Test Driven Development (TDD) and his ultimate conclusion that TDD is fundamentally flawed. Robert Martin quickly posted an excellent response pointing out that what Sommerville was experiencing was typical of people new to Test Driven Development. Whilst Martin's response pulls no punches in pointing out the source of Sommerville's issues it does not really leave any practical advice for someone struggling with learning TDD.