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When Pragmatism Silences Dogma in Development
Testing Post #6678 · source on Telegram

When Pragmatism Silences Dogma in Development

Description

A meme featuring a solemn, robed figure with a metallic blue mask, holding up one hand in a gesture demanding silence. White text is overlaid on the image. The top text reads, 'SILENCE, Test driven developer'. The bottom text proclaims, 'Error driven developer IS TALKING'. This meme humorously elevates the chaotic, reactive style of 'error-driven development' - writing code and fixing the resulting errors - over the more structured and idealized 'test-driven development' (TDD) methodology. For experienced developers, the joke resonates because it acknowledges a common reality: while TDD is often preached as the ideal, the practical, day-to-day work of building and fixing software under pressure often devolves into a cycle of running code, seeing what breaks, and debugging the problem. The 'error-driven developer' is portrayed as the one with true authority, forged in the fires of production issues and cryptic stack traces

Categories

Testing Debugging Troubleshooting SDLC CodeQuality DeveloperProductivity

Common Tags

Testing DeveloperHumor UnitTesting DebuggingFrustration DeveloperStereotypes

Comments

29
Anonymous ★ Top Pick Test-driven development is great until you inherit a legacy system where the only test is 'does it still make money?' and the only feedback is the compiler screaming at you in thirteen different languages
  1. Anonymous ★ Top Pick

    Test-driven development is great until you inherit a legacy system where the only test is 'does it still make money?' and the only feedback is the compiler screaming at you in thirteen different languages

  2. Anonymous

    After twenty years we’ve discovered the real workflow: write no tests, ship, let production throw an exception, THEN retroactively declare it a failing test case - instant TDD compliance!

  3. Anonymous

    After 20 years in the industry, I've learned that 'error-driven development' is just production-driven testing with better PR. The real pros know both approaches converge at 3am when the CEO is asking why the payment gateway is returning 'undefined is not a function'

  4. Anonymous

    The eternal standoff: TDD practitioners writing tests before code like it's a religious doctrine, while error-driven developers treat production as their integration test environment. One writes `assert(feature.works())` before the feature exists; the other writes the feature, ships it, and learns what 'works' means from Sentry alerts at 3 AM. Both claim their approach is 'pragmatic' - one prevents bugs through discipline, the other discovers them through user feedback. The real joke? They're both right depending on whether you're building a pacemaker or a landing page

  5. Anonymous

    We call it EDD: the API contract is negotiated by whatever exception the runtime throws first

  6. Anonymous

    TDD architects the cathedral; EDD rebuilds it mid-earthquake while users pray

  7. Anonymous

    TDD: red->green->refactor; error-driven: pager->stacktrace->hotfix->postmortem

  8. @vladyslav_google 1y

    I wonder, what percentage of devs is actually use TDD in development?)

    1. Deleted Account 1y

      what's TDD?

      1. @vladyslav_google 1y

        Test Driven Development

        1. @callofvoid0 1y

          like writing tests for every piece of code you write?

          1. @AngryBandera 1y

            like writing tests and then writing code to pass them

            1. @callofvoid0 1y

              then you are writing code for the test not test for the code

              1. @AngryBandera 1y

                yes, and it's called TDD

                1. @callofvoid0 1y

                  this is shit

                  1. @H3R3T1C 1y

                    Its a PITA, but depends of the developers... if developer made shity tests you will get shity implementation too hahaha

          2. @vladyslav_google 1y

            No, the core approach is you first write tests (unit test, if to be precise), and then write code for these tests to pass. Pretty weird approach, for my opinion, and don't understand why it is so praised in the dev community.

          3. @H3R3T1C 1y

            Write test before implementation

    2. ㅤ 1y

      I only use it for big db migrations. Like to merge some shit and don't fuck up the data. So it's a fast way to do a fixture and then build your migration according to the expected results.

  9. @AngryBandera 1y

    you are right)

    1. @callofvoid0 1y

      might be good for writing libraries

      1. @AngryBandera 1y

        maybe, there are some applications for sure, but i've been studing it in uni and it was so lame

  10. @mpolovnev 1y

    We use customers as testers.

    1. @vladyslav_google 1y

      Based 🗿🗿🗿

    2. Good Bye, Mother-Not-Found 1y

      REAL DEVELOPER

    3. @M4lenov 1y

      it is what it is

  11. @Contact99 1y

    I don’t mind errors. I’m a scream-driven developer. My debugging process starts when users start screaming!

  12. @H3R3T1C 1y

    Like a test where asserte 2+2=5....

  13. @ashit_axar 1y

    Mother Nature uses Mutation driven development. 😂😂

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