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Test Driven Development: By Example 1st Edition

by Kent Beck (Author)
4.3 4.3 out of 5 stars 547 ratings
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Quite simply, test-driven development is meant to eliminate fear in application development. While some fear is healthy (often viewed as a conscience that tells programmers to "be careful!"), the author believes that byproducts of fear include tentative, grumpy, and uncommunicative programmers who are unable to absorb constructive criticism. When programming teams buy into TDD, they immediately see positive results. They eliminate the fear involved in their jobs, and are better equipped to tackle the difficult challenges that face them. TDD eliminates tentative traits, it teaches programmers to communicate, and it encourages team members to seek out criticism However, even the author admits that grumpiness must be worked out individually! In short, the premise behind TDD is that code should be continually tested and refactored. Kent Beck teaches programmers by example, so they can painlessly and dramatically increase the quality of their work.

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  1. ISBN-10
    9780321146533
  2. ISBN-13
    978-0321146533
  3. Edition
    1st
  4. Publisher
    Addison-Wesley Professional
  5. Publication date
    November 8, 2002
  6. Language
    English
  7. Dimensions
    7.38 x 0.55 x 9.25 inches
  8. Print length
    240 pages
  9. See all details
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Editorial Reviews

From the Back Cover

Clean code that works--now. This is the seeming contradiction that lies behind much of the pain of programming. Test-driven development replies to this contradiction with a paradox--test the program before you write it.

A new idea? Not at all. Since the dawn of computing, programmers have been specifying the inputs and outputs before programming precisely. Test-driven development takes this age-old idea, mixes it with modern languages and programming environments, and cooks up a tasty stew guaranteed to satisfy your appetite for clean code that works--now.

Developers face complex programming challenges every day, yet they are not always readily prepared to determine the best solution. More often than not, such difficult projects generate a great deal of stress and bad code. To garner the strength and courage needed to surmount seemingly Herculean tasks, programmers should look to test-driven development (TDD), a proven set of techniques that encourage simple designs and test suites that inspire confidence.

By driving development with automated tests and then eliminating duplication, any developer can write reliable, bug-free code no matter what its level of complexity. Moreover, TDD encourages programmers to learn quickly, communicate more clearly, and seek out constructive feedback.

Readers will learn to:

  • Solve complicated tasks, beginning with the simple and proceeding to the more complex.
  • Write automated tests before coding.
  • Grow a design organically by refactoring to add design decisions one at a time.
  • Create tests for more complicated logic, including reflection and exceptions.
  • Use patterns to decide what tests to write.
  • Create tests using xUnit, the architecture at the heart of many programmer-oriented testing tools.

This book follows two TDD projects from start to finish, illustrating techniques programmers can use to easily and dramatically increase the quality of their work. The examples are followed by references to the featured TDD patterns and refactorings. With its emphasis on agile methods and fast development strategies, Test-Driven Development is sure to inspire readers to embrace these under-utilized but powerful techniques.



0321146530B10172002

About the Author

Kent Beck consistently challenges software engineering dogma, promoting ideas like patterns, test-driven development, and Extreme Programming. Currently affiliated with Three Rivers Institute and Agitar Software, he is the author of many Addison-Wesley titles.

Product details

  • ASIN ‏ : ‎ 0321146530
  • Publisher ‏ : ‎ Addison-Wesley Professional; 1st edition (November 8, 2002)
  • Language ‏ : ‎ English
  • Paperback ‏ : ‎ 240 pages
  • ISBN-10 ‏ : ‎ 9780321146533
  • ISBN-13 ‏ : ‎ 978-0321146533
  • Item Weight ‏ : ‎ 14.1 ounces
  • Dimensions ‏ : ‎ 7.38 x 0.55 x 9.25 inches
  • Customer Reviews:
    4.3 4.3 out of 5 stars 547 ratings

About the author

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Kent Beck

Kent Beck

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Kent Beck is the founder and director of Three Rivers Institute (TRI). His career has combined the practice of software development with reflection, innovation, and communication. His contributions to software development include patterns for software, the rediscovery of test-first programming, the xUnit family of developer testing tools, and Extreme Programming. He currently divides his time between writing, programming, and coaching. Beck is the author/co-author of Implementation Patterns, Extreme Programming Explained: Embrace Change 2nd Edition, Contributing to Eclipse, Test-Driven Development: By Example, Planning Extreme Programming, Smalltalk Best Practice Patterns, and the JUnit Pocket Guide. He received his B.S. and M.S. in Computer Science from the University of Oregon.

Customer reviews

4.3 out of 5 stars
4.3 out of 5
547 global ratings
Kindle version bad formatting: Lacks strikethrough
4 Stars
Kindle version bad formatting: Lacks strikethrough
The content of the book might be good, however I had to return the Kindle version because the formatting is lacking strikethrough. See the screenshot. I will just have to check out a hard copy from the local library.It is a shame that we are disallowed from giving the publisher (or whoever creates the Kindle formatting) a separate rating from the author. Author maybe 5 star, publisher/formatter 1 star.
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Top reviews from the United States

Martin P. Cohen
5.0 out of 5 stars Allows you to judge TDD for yourself
Reviewed in the United States on April 17, 2003
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Let me say first off that I agree with much that Kent Beck has to say: 1. Testing should be done along with the coding. 2. Use regression tests to be confident of making changes. 3. In many ways testing can be used as documentation since it is much more definitive than specification documents. 4. Testing should be used to have the client sign off on a product. In reading the book I learned the specifics of how tests are designed in TDD. It seems reasonable and I am going to make a conscious effort at designing my tests in the way suggested.
Where I disagree is in the use of the tests to drive software design. In the first part of the book, which I think is the most important part, a very good coding problem is analyzed - it is realistic, limited in scope and far from trivial. I followed along until I reached a point where things stopped making sense. I skipped ahead to see where things were headed and then things became clear.
What is being advocated is a type of bottom up design approach. This may work for some. It may even be that the book faithfully reproduced Beck's reasoning process. It does not work for me. I first have to see the larger picture, what he refers to as the "metaphor." The whole thing would have been much clearer to me if at the beginning I was told that one approach to summing money in different currencies would be to use an array to store the information but that instead the implementation would create a list similar to how things are done in LISP.
I urge the reader to judge for him/herself. Like I said this is a good example to go through. I even learned some things about more advanced uses of object oriented programming. As for software design I am going to stick with dataflow diagrams. They are still the best tool that I know of for putting together software, UML notwithstanding.
27 people found this helpful
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Balaji Senthilkumar
5.0 out of 5 stars Happy!
Reviewed in the United States on August 10, 2023
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Condition as described!
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R. Williams
4.0 out of 5 stars 90% is Just Showing Up
Reviewed in the United States on December 9, 2002
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Everyone who's read about XP has wanted a book like this forever, so a decent performance was bound to be a happy occasion (a hot dog is a feast to a starving man). I would disagree with the last reviewer and say that the first part of the book is the good part, when the author works through his 'money' example. At the end of it, there's a great moment when Beck acknowledges the importance of metaphor, claiming that he'd done the same exercise a number of times, though this time, he had picked a better metaphor and it subsequently went a lot faster. I have to laugh at this. This is a case of obiter dicta (giving away the key to something in passing). But the funny thing is that Beck doesn't notice how important it is. He proceeds to just meander through the rest of the book. Then, the book just goes down the rathole as we feel like we're being treated to a prof who's run through his material and is just waiting for the bell. The section on patterns is abominable, ending with a thing on Singleton that says something like 'Don't use global variables, your programs will be happier,' which is a ridiculous capsulization of an issue that a lot of people have discussed many times before. A Singleton is globally available. It's not a variable. Mail servers are globally available too. Guess we shouldn't use them either.
Let me also say that I am really kind of fed up with Kent Beck's Opi Taylor writing style. It's ok when the focus is on the KISS side of the equation and generally positive, but his snide little sideswipes throughout this book on everything from the open-closed principle to the idea of doing specifications (another searing, strong argument that boils down to the root of the word being the same as for the word speculation (!)) are really laughable. Makes me wanna say, yeah, who needs a spec if all they are doing is the 10 millionth payroll program or a currency converter. Don't look to Kent Beck for big answers, as a matter of fact, by his own half-conscious admission, he's as much in search of them as we are.
So why 4 stars? Per the subject, the Woody Allen principle. Another hysterical part of this book is at the very end he shows a list of things someone else suggested, none of which are covered in the book, as if he had to tell us, at the end, that he knew just how much was missing.
59 people found this helpful
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C. K. Ray
5.0 out of 5 stars helpful for cross-platform coding too
Reviewed in the United States on January 6, 2003
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It's about time that someone wrote this book. Some programmers have been doing test-driven-development since the earliest days of our profession, and the rest of us have been wondering why it is so hard to development software the "traditional" (non-TDD) way.
Test-driven development (or as I prefer to call it, test-driven-design) helps you figure out the most useful interface to your class-under-test, without getting you into the psychological trap of not "really" wanting to test (and thus prove faulty) your "wonderful" code, because your code doesn't exist yet. The tests help you think about the implementation in small, mostly painless, steps.
TDD also helps you write portable code. By getting portions of the logical parts of your application done first (the "model" of "model-view-controller"), you easily keep the logic code OUT of the GUI code. Typically, programming without test-driven-design makes it too easy to put all your logic into your GUI class. Almost all books on how to use MFC and other GUI class frameworks mix the logic code with view code -- you should read this book so you can be a better programmer.
19 people found this helpful
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Michael Wagner
5.0 out of 5 stars A must have for developers
Reviewed in the United States on September 30, 2012
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This book is a must have if you really want to dig into the practice of TDD. Kent Beck describes how you should begin, how to step through tests and production code and comes with handy examples.

The book begins with a full example of how to create and evolve software completely test driven. You'll learn how to write the tests, how to fill leaps if you don't have any clue how to write the next test on the list with intermediate tests and you see, how easy design decisions can be applied or reverted if necessary.

At the end of the book there is also a discussion about what TDD is all about, how you can apply it to your own skills/practices and what you have to look for when applying it onto new but also existing applications.

I liked reading it very much.
2 people found this helpful
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Top reviews from other countries

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carlos herique
5.0 out of 5 stars Livro essencial
Reviewed in Brazil on March 22, 2024
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Essencial para desenvolvedores. Vá direto a fonte.
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Roy Klein
1.0 out of 5 stars The kindle edition is unreadable
Reviewed in the Netherlands on March 18, 2023
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This review is for the kindle edition. The content of the book itself is fine, but it's a code heavy book and the Kindle has absolutely no formatting. I tried slogging through and understand the code examples without the formatting, but 30% into the book I realized I am getting list too easily and gave up. And this is when I am very interested in the topic and find the content valuable.

Don't waste your money on a kindle edition, it's completely useless.
One person found this helpful
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Ryan G
5.0 out of 5 stars TDD done right
Reviewed in the United Kingdom on March 13, 2023
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TDD gold standard. Clear explanations, good process advice.
Worth the time to read.
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5.0 out of 5 stars Genre-defining, legendary book
Reviewed in Germany on March 31, 2022
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To be honest I didn't expect a lot from this book. I expected a lot of preaching and very few techniques on how to do TDD. But I was very pleasantly surprised from the very first chapter. I loved the both parts of the book with different projects. The thing I loved most was that it contained information of why's and when's of TDD. It very well expanded on the information of different TDD cycle parts. I found the information on refactoring (blue) part most.

Regardless — I'd recommend at least a little bit of real-life exposure to TDD before reading this book, but YMMV.
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DeltoId
5.0 out of 5 stars Superbe bouquin.
Reviewed in France on January 12, 2022
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Très bien écrit et à la hauteur de mes attentes. Thank you Kent Beck ;-)
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