Re: how many bugs do you find and correct during TDD?

jgrigg_at_mo.net
Date: 01/16/05 

Date: 16 Jan 2005 09:42:08 -0800

>> Eisenhower once said: "In preparing for battle I have always found
>> that plans are useless, but planning is indispensable."

With battle and vacation plans (as if there was much of a difference!
;-) planning can be useful, even if reality turns out different than
the plan. This is why: If you list most of the things that are likely
to happen, and prepare to handle any of them (and a few combinations),
then it's likely that you'll be sufficiently prepared, in terms of
available time, materials, and other resources, to handle whatever
actually does happen.

Example: The car might break down. So you bring extra money and plan
for some "slack" in the schedule -- just in case.

Actually, the car doesn't break down. But someone gets really sick and
must visit the hospital. Well, that extra money and time turn out to
be useful.

The best value of up-front planning is that it helps you prepare for a
variety of things, both planned and unplanned, that might happen. The
problem with BDUF in software is that you don't really know what's
likely to happen; there's just too wide a range of possible events.
And aside from having a big cushion of time and money, preparing to
handle one possible problem won't help you much with other unrelated
problems that might occur. So BDUF is helpful in travel (and war), but
not very helpful or efficient in software development.

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