Developer Testing: Building Quality into Software

Foreword by Jeff Langr

Ten years ago, I became the manager and tech lead for a small development team at a local, small start-up after spending some months developing for them. The software was an almost prototypically mired mess of convoluted logic and difficult defects. On taking the leadership role, I began to promote ideas of test-driven development (TDD) in an attempt to improve the code quality. Most of the developers were at least willing to listen, and a couple eventually embraced TDD.

One developer, however, quit two days later without saying a word to me. I was told that he said something to the effect that “I’m never going to write a test, that’s not my job as a programmer.” I was initially concerned that I’d been too eager (though ...