Derik Whittaker

Browse by Tags

• Agile
• Best Practice
• Development
• Featured
• Humor
• Methodology
• Rant

• Testing is hard but debugging just sucks A$$

  In my last post ( here ) I was giving a wrap up of the Mocking session I recently did at TriNug . In that post I gave some of the reasons (sorry, I meant excuses) people gave for not doing any type of automated testing during their dally development ritual... Posted Nov 14 2008, 05:58 PM by Derik Whittaker with | with 22 comment(s) Filed under: Agile, TDD, Opinion, Rant

• Keeping your tests up to date

  While putting together one of my last posts one thought kept scrolling through my head.  This was the idea that when you modify your code, you need to make sure your that the intent of your tests still are correct.  I know this concept may seem... Posted May 23 2008, 09:57 AM by Derik Whittaker with | with 12 comment(s) Filed under: TDD, Opinion

• Thoughts on writing quality test code vs writing quality application code

  Anyone that is a practitioner of testing or specially TDD knows that the quality of your tests are a direct measure in the assumed quality of your tested code.  Better put, if your tests suck, you can assume very low quality from your code. So what... Posted May 21 2008, 07:31 AM by Derik Whittaker with | with 4 comment(s) Filed under: TDD, Opinion, Featured

• Tests make a great To-Do List

  How many times as developers have we made list of things we needed to work on.  Most of the time they are 'tasks' in some sort of task management system.  However, we do not have one of these such systems at work.  So I decided... Posted Mar 21 2008, 07:28 PM by Derik Whittaker with | with 1 comment(s) Filed under: TDD, Opinion

• They all have one thing in common.....

  Test first Test during Test after Answer, Test. No matter what style of testing you believe in, they all share one common trait. They all test your code. So, what is the point of this post you may ask? Simple. To me, it does not matter how your tests... Posted Mar 18 2008, 06:07 PM by Derik Whittaker with | with 5 comment(s) Filed under: Agile, TDD, Opinion

• Thoughts, Comments from a first time tester

  A buddy of mine decided to finally give testing a try (not true TDD, but still writing tests) and he made me laugh by some of the statements/observations he made. Where do I start? This feels weird! Am I doing this right? How much is enough? When he mentioned... Posted Mar 17 2008, 05:59 AM by Derik Whittaker with | with 3 comment(s) Filed under: TDD, Opinion

• Sound of one man testing

  Recently I was chatting with a friend of mine and he asked if a single developer could be successful following TDD on a team that does not follow TDD. My simple answer was YES, they can. But there are a few things you must consider..... How can they make... Posted Feb 18 2008, 05:30 AM by Derik Whittaker with | with 14 comment(s) Filed under: Agile, TDD, Opinion

• Whitebox vs Blackbox testing (location of unit tests)

  Over on the Alt.Net mailing list ( here ) the topic of where to put your unit tests was the hot topic a few days ago. This is a topic that I have debated with various people over the past few years. With all the debates I have had, it is clear to me that... Posted Jan 28 2008, 05:38 AM by Derik Whittaker with | with 4 comment(s) Filed under: Agile, TDD, Opinion, Best Practice

• Failing builds, the sound of silence

  I'm sure that everyone has heard the riddle ' If a tree falls in a forest and no one is around to hear it, does it make a sound?' . This riddle is all about observation and knowledge of reality. Well, I have a riddle for software teams following... Posted Nov 07 2007, 07:00 AM by Derik Whittaker with | with 3 comment(s) Filed under: Methodology, TDD, Humor, Opinion

• Backing in Unit Tests into an existing project

  Recently I was asked about backing in unit tests into an existing project. In particular I was asked A) was possible and B) is it worth it. In short my answers to both these are Yes and Yes. However, backing in unit tests is not without its challenges... Posted Oct 09 2007, 07:35 AM by Derik Whittaker with | with 4 comment(s) Filed under: Development, Agile, Methodology, TDD, Opinion

• Why I believe IN and WRITE unit tests

  In my last post I think I struck a cord with some people in my post 'Unit tests taking too much time'. My intent was NOT to sound like an elitist Agilist or any else of that nature. My intent was simply to put a post out there about the misperception... Posted Oct 01 2007, 07:27 PM by Derik Whittaker with | with 12 comment(s) Filed under: Development, Agile, Methodology, TDD, Opinion, Featured

• "Unit tests take too much time".... WTF

  I was chatting with a buddy of mine yesterday who recently has started a new job. His new company has built a new team to start a 'green field' project and they are currently in the 'debate' stage of planning. The team is currently trying... Posted Sep 27 2007, 07:38 AM by Derik Whittaker with | with 20 comment(s) Filed under: TDD, Opinion, Best Practice