Good Design, part IV: The Role of Tests
We’ve seen how refactoring becomes the primary design activity on an Agile team. Diligent, confident refactoring is possible to the degree that the code is…
Category: TDD
Good Design, Part II: Code Smells
Last month we talked about good software design and introduced the notion of code smells. Code smells are names given to those instinctual thoughts you…
Good Design
I’ve learned not to assume a team has experienced a variety of software design skills. Some are writing elegant functional-paradigm code in archaic, challenging languages.…
How TDD is More Than Simply Unit Testing
I was recently asked about the difference between unit-testing and Test-Driven Development (TDD). Specifically, why—if the end results are the same—would I recommend TDD over…
Frequently Asked Questions about Agile Technical Skills
What are the Agile Engineering Skills, Scrum Developer Practices, or Software Craftsmanship practices? These are three (of many) common names for a set of practices…
Technical Debt Isn’t Really a Metaphor
Many years ago, Ward Cunningham posted an excellent video on YouTube regarding refactoring and “debt”. If you haven’t seen it, I have it for you, below. But…