[karterk]

I find TDD to be useful in two cases:

1. When I already know what I'm doing and it's just a matter of coding what's already in my mind

2. When I'm writing in a dynamically typed language, it forces me to be not lazy and have adequate test coverage since I don't have compile time type safety

I do less of TDD when dealing with a statically typed language and/or when I'm working in an exploratory mode. TDD doesn't help me when I'm just trying out different things to get going.

The thing that pisses me off is when people don't realize that EVERY technique has caveats and try to promote it as a golden rule - a lot of "agile" consultants preach TDD as the golden grail for writing code without any bugs.

EDIT: grammar

[ajanuary]

  1. When I already know what I'm doing and it's just a matter of coding what's already in my mind

A concept often used in TDD is spiking. If you don't know what you're doing, do a quick and dirty untested version until you do know what you're doing. Throw that code away and TDD it with your new found knowledge.