What is the best description of TDD?

Question

There are lots of questions on SO about TDD, and a lot of misconceptions. Where can I point people to when trying to answer questions?

Answer 1

Wikipedia - Test-driven_development?

Answer 2

When I am describing TDD to others I go to Phlip Plumlee's (phlip cpp) description in news groups. The link is a long article and includes a discussion on Simplicity, a description of the TDD cycle and even an example in C++ using cppUnit.

Answer 3

I like to point people to the bowling game episode. It's a good tutorial, simple, not too long and it illustrates the test-driven point very well.

Answer 4

You could point them at a youtube videos perhaps.

The definition I've been fed from my university degree is:

...Traditionally testing was "Test last". TDD turns this around to "Test First", with code being written in small amounts, inclemently.

Having never been part of a purely test driven project (nor would I want to be!) I don't know how true this is to purists.

"Scrum in 10 minutes" is a good video about the surrounding methodologies, though not strictly about TDD.

Answer 5

There's a great book on this topic Test-Driven Development By Example by Kent Beck and in this book TDD looks like this (with my own words):

1. Write a test;
2. Make it compile;
3. Make it pass;
4. Remove redundancies.

Answer 6

For a succinct description of Test Driven Development and its benefits in a short article, I don't think you can do better than Robert C. Martin's classic blog post, The Three Rules of TDD.