Subject: Book Recommendation: Test Driven Development: By Example (by Kent Beck)

From: Shlomi Fish <[email-masked]>
Date: Fri, 22 Jul 2011 17:18:13 +0300

This is a book review of the book “Test Driven Development: By Example” by Kent
Beck. First of all the rudimentary links about the book:

* http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Test-Driven_Development_by_Example

* http://www.amazon.com/Test-Driven-Development-Kent-Beck/dp/0321146530

-------------

I was disappointed after I started reading an earlier book about "Test Driven
Development" (TDD) that I have bought (here's my earlier review and
recommendation against:
http://mail.perl.org.il/pipermail/perl/2010-April/010909.html ) but I decided
to give the TDD sub-series of the Extreme Programming books another chance with
the more elementary book in question. This time, the book met my expectations
and I can recommend it.

First of all, Beck's book is relatively short and small, as opposed to the
"xUnit Test Patterns" book. It is also interesting, entertaining and full of
insights. It is divided into three sections:

1. In the first: a sample financial TDD project is developed in Java, with
instructions on how to proceed every way. The standard “add-failing-test; get
it to pass; refactor;” cycle is described there with a TODO list as a tool.
This was the best section, IMO.

2. In the second section, Beck bootstraps an xUnit framework in Python
starting from nothing (and compares it to doing brain surgery on yourself.).

3. In the third section, he briefly discusses various TDD patterns. I admit I
did not pay enough attention there because I read the book before going to
sleep when I was tired, and want to go over it again.

So I can recommend this book for all people who want to learn how to do TDD
better. Mr. Beck kinda aims for the high ideal of TDD and I often deviates from
it, which I think is OK.

Regards,

	Shlomi Fish

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Shlomi Fish       http://www.shlomifish.org/
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Learn Perl from “Learning Perl in 24 Minutes Unleashed, in a Nutshell for 
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    — based on Shlomi Fish and f00li5h on #perl

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