[Jeff_Dickey]

Difficulty of testing is a generally reliable indicator of a design that's in deep pain. [Growing Object-Oriented Software, Guided by Tests](http://www.growing-object-oriented-software.com) is easily one of the two or three most influential technical books I've read in my career — and the book's only five years old.

When I'm spelunking through some dank and dimly-lit Rails-model God Objects, I often fantasise about how things would be different if certain influential developers had read that book or one like it before setting out, and had taken the lessons to heart. Then I swap the batteries in my headlamp, and continue my descent.