[FRIDAY] Banging the rocks together

[Ted Husted]

Here's an experience I'd recommend to anyone:

1. Get a copy of Kent Beck's TDD by Example

<http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ISBN=0321146530/hitchhikeguidetoA>

2. Enter all the examples from the book with IDEA by IntelliJ.

<http://intellij.com/idea/>

Why?

Well, first, Kent's book is a good read. He walks you through creating a set of classes test-by-test, refactoring-by-refactoring. The best part is that IDEA will happily do virtually all of the refactoring for you. =:0)

TDD demands that you have a failing test before writing any code. So, Kent is forever changing tests so that they fail, which means he gets to write some more code. Following the general TDD style, Kent changes the "upper layer" of the code first and then fixes the "lower layer". As soon as you do this, IDEA points out that the change won't work -- and then usually suggests doing exactly what Kent does in the next step. Since the changes themselves aren't the point of the exercise, have yourself some fun and let IDEA make Kent's changes for you.


[Favorite author's triva quiz #2]


".. the secret is to bang the rocks together, guys."

Autographed copy of "Struts in Action" for the first lucky emailer to correctly identify author, title, **AND** character.


-Ted.


(:= Not affiliated with Kent Beck or IntelliJ, just Struts in Action =:)



--
Ted Husted,
Struts in Action <http://husted.com/struts/book.html>


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