An Old Debate

I don't think I've ever written a post like this one. I've tended to shy away. But I thought this was a very interesting discussion, and one that ties in well with things I've written in the past.

Background Reading:
http://www.joelonsoftware.com/items/2009/01/31.html Joel Spolsky and Jeff Atwood did a podcast, you can find a partial transcript here. In it, they say that TDD, taken to an extreme, is a waste of time. And that the "SOLID" principles are bureaucratic. But the point seems to be that all this stuff shouldn't get in the way of delivering software your customers need and want.

http://blog.objectmentor.com/articles/2009/01/31/quality-doesnt-matter-that-much-jeff-and-joel Robert Martin, who's big in TDD and SOLID, responds to Joel and Jeff. In this, he says they've completely misunderstood TDD and SOLID and Agile and basically claims they are unqualified to talk about it.

Moving On:
It's impossible to argue that you should spend lots of time doing anything in code if that time doesn't pay off in the long run.

That's where this argument gets interesting. Joel and Jeff are taking their understanding of unit tests, SOLID, etc applying it to their experience and deciding it requires extra time in code that doesn't pay off in the long run.

Martin, on the other hand, is defending his baby by pointing out that Joel and Jeff aren't understanding unit tests, SOLID, etc in the way he understands them. So his claim is that those techniques, when done correctly, do pay off in the long run.

Its pretty much impossible to resolve this. No two people will approach the code the same way, even if they think they're both being Agile and using the same principles.

So what I got out of all of this is:

1. Think. You have to think. You have to pay attention. You have to play the balance games and weigh the pros and cons.
2. TDD is hard. Code design is hard. They're both even harder to teach than they are to do. And in the end, these are just techniques. They are a means to an end, and are not the only means.
3. Situation makes all the difference in the world. You really can't talk about coding practices without talking about what you're building. A small website requires different coding than the .NET framework. Its very important to recognize this, especially when you're reading recommendations from other people.