Introduction to Test Driven Development (TDD)
I recently gave a talk at the Barcelona Java Users Group (yes, my beloved 🥰 Java community). Specifically was an Introduction to Test Driven Development and it is based on most of the experience I have accumulated over the years practising TDD. Here you can take a look at the recorded session
It was a great experience and at the same time a bit stressful (but only during a few seconds 😅). Let me explain it a bit about what happened: I was giving the presentation without no problems. I started talking a bit of history around TDD. I continued with why I think it is interesting to think about, or at least to see if it could work for you or your team. There are many reasons, but I think it makes sense to emphasize that it has been proved that the software you will write applying TDD it is likely to have fewer bugs (approximately 40% fewer defects according to some papers). Next, I shared how the process works and the rules we have to follow. Probably you may know the process:
- write a test that fails,
- write the minimum code that makes the previous test pass,
- refactor the code
I like to say, that it is not difficult to understand how to start with TDD, but I think it takes some time to master it properly.
Back to the presentation, I explained some of what I consider to be good habits when using and applying TDD. Then, I followed up with the live coding part of the presentation, where I demonstrated how to apply TDD with a simple kata. Then, suddenly, at some point, 😉 while I was using IntelliJ IDEA in Presentation Mode the cursor disappeared. I was writing some code, I selected an expression, I moved a line up, and magically the cursor disappeared, just like that 😅
I am a big fan of IntelliJ IDEA. I think it is one of the best IDEs you can use. In fact, if you are regularly building and changing code with Java, I think it is the best one (or at least one of the best) you can use. By far, it has the most powerful options and features in terms of refactoring your code safely (unless I know about it). Once you are used to it, you will not go back to another IDE (at least this is what happened to me a long time ago 😉). What happened was really weird and I assume that probably the antivirus (yes, by corporate reasons I have to use one) or either Zoom (yes we found some issues while pairing with IntelliJ) was the responsible of the problem.
Would you like to know some funny thing? I shared this presentation 2 times at Dynatrace working in the same way, with the same software and setup, and I didn’t have a problem. You know, with software there is always a possibility to have something different (a byte, a comma, etc) and things could always go wrong 🤷♀️ (at least in a live coding session 😅). The saying on this occasion may be, no matter how many times you can prepare a talk, I’m sure every single time you give it, it will be a bit different 🤔. But, I guess this is exactly the beauty of this art of giving presentations, isn’t it? 😃
Lastly, comment that in the last part, I explained a little about what pair programming is all about so that I could finally offer participants the opportunity to write some code. Once we arrived at this moment, we separated by pairs to be able to solve some of the proposed katas.
Here you can check the slides of the session and the video of the session. I hope you enjoy the recording, I think some people might learn some techniques or tips… or might just thinking around TDD, what we call in Spain “que te pique el gusanillo” 🐛, more or less “awaking your interest” 😉
PS: I know, I have to learn on how to be steady: every now and then you can hear the microphone I had hanging on my shirt rubbing (sorry about this 😅). Maybe I have to buy a better microphone or use a wireless headset to avoid this kind of problems 🤔
PS2: Please, do not hesitate to ping me or share with me in which areas or topics I should improve. Here you have the feedback form I created to get all your opinions. Any feedback or suggestions are more than welcome 😃 !