[manuelabeledo]

> Something like TDD (and other XP practices like pairing) reminds me of diet/fitness /nutrition regimens that are notoriously difficult to comply with.

But these regimens do work. It's just that they don't work for the reasons most people believe.

Take fasting. Most benefits of fasting in casual practitioners come from the obvious fact that they aren't consuming as much calories as they did before, so they lose weight. That doesn't mean fasting works in a different way from, say, just eating less.

Same goes for TDD. It may be beneficial because it forces a culture of testing and code coverage, but the root of such benefits may not be writing tests before code, yet that's what most people agree TDD is about.

[ZeroGravitas]

I thought this was exactly the point of TDD and fasting but maybe I'm going to the wrong church.