An interesting
essay on Test Driven Development [TDD] which links to
an empirical study [pdf] on the effectiveness of TDD in projects and its impact on quality and development speed. The abstract included:
Based on the findings of the existing studies, it can be concluded that TDD seems to improve software quality, especially when employed in an industrial context.
Industrial there seems to mean out in the real world of development at corporations and software shops. Of the thirteen studies that were looked at in this study only three were in a production environment, the rest were academic or computer science students or the voluntary participation of professional developers. Which limits the usefulness of the results. However of the industrial studies:
It is especially significant that all industrial case studies reported considerably reduced defect rates, as much as 40 to 50 % less. The productivity effects were not that obvious: ... report TDD significantly decreasing the lead-time while the ... other ... study shows TDD to have no difference or only slight impact to the developer productivity.
One of the benefits of TDD is that it espouses 100% test coverage. If you are doing tests first and API second then you are guaranteed to have 100% test coverage of your code which I do not doubt reduces defect rates. Unit testing is pretty powerful when done well and when it covers the cyclomatic complexity of code.
I personally do not use TDD, I prefer to muck around with the code first and get something in place first before locking it down with unit tests. I agree with the original essay that TDD tends to freeze the API in place to early. Some freedom is needed to 'feel out' the design of the code in my not so humble opinion.
The counter argument is that you can refactor with confidence once there is 100% coverage in place and then improve the design under the umbrella of passing tests.
More Reading on Software engineering
Most Popular on South Sea Republic
The articles that have been viewed the most:
Most Popular Restaurants in Phoenix
Phoenix Eats Out is the restaurant review site for
Phoenix,
Scottsdale and
Old Town Scottsdale which lists the modernist and contemporary restaurants, taverns and bars in the greater Phoenix area.
This is the list of the most popular restaurants pages from phoenixeatsout.com that have been viewed the most;
My personal favourite restaurants in Phoenix are
AZ88,
Postinos,
Bomberos with
Grazie,
Humble Pie,
Orange Table,
The Vig,
Fez and others coming close behind. View the complete list with the photo-journalistic style images on
phoenixeatsout.com
Most Popular Hikes in Arizona
Arizona is an outdoor state and has lots of hiking in the city and around the state. Phoenix is unusual for most cities in having several large mountains in the center of the city with great hiking. Anyone who comes to Phoenix has to do the
Echo Canyon trail on Camelback and the
Summit Hike on Squaw Peak or Piesta Peak. The views of the city, suburbs and surrounding mountains are wonderful from Camelback and Piesta Peak.
For more experienced hikers there is the McDowell Mountains in North Scottsdale that has several difficult and strenuous hikes in
Tom's Thumb and
Bell Pass. Alternatively, you can hike the highest mountain in Arizona. At 12,600 feet
Humphrey's Peak is a long and difficult hike.
Alternate Australian Constitutions
Between 2004 and 2009 this site,
southsearepublic.org, was a constitutional blog based on scoop which focused on Australian and global constitutional issues.
One of the strongest aspects of it was the development of constitutions by those involved in the blog. These constitutions are the outcome:
The constitutions were built using principles from Montesquieu's separation of powers, the enlightnment's universal political rights and the ancient Athenian technology of sortition and choice by lot.
Archives For South Sea Republic
South Sea Republic started in 2004 as an Australian constitutional blog in 2004 based on scoop software. It was an immigrative outgrowth of Kuro5hin. The archives for each year since then;
The articles are ordered by views.
Who Is Cam Riley
I am an Australian living in the United States as a permanent resident.
I am a software developer by trade and mostly work in Java and jump between middleware and front end.
I originally worked in the New York area of the United States in telecommunications before moving to Washington DC and
working in a mix of telecommunications, energy and ITS. I started my own software company before heading out to
Arizona and working with Shutterfly. Since then I have joined a startup in the Phoenix area and am thoroughly enjoying myself.
I do a lot of photography which I post on this website, but also on flickr. I have a photo-journalistic website which lists
the modernist and contemporary restaurants in phoenix. I have a site on the
Australian Flying Corps [AFC] which has been around since the 1990s and which I unfortunately
lost the .org URL to during a life event; however, it is under the
www.australianflyingcorps.com URL now.
The AFC website has gone through several iterations since the 90s and the two most recent are
Australian Flying Corps Archives(2004-2002) and
Australian Flying Corps Archives(2002-1999) which are good places to start.
Websites Worth Reading
Websites of friends, colleagues and of interest;
