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39 lines
1.7 KiB
39 lines
1.7 KiB
5 years ago
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title = "Things I Learnt The Hard Way - Be Ready To Throw Your Code Away"
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date = 2019-06-19
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[taxonomies]
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tags = ["en-au", "book", "things i learnt", "code"]
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A lot of people, when they start with TDD, get annoyed when you say that you
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may have to rewrite a lot of stuff, including whatever your already wrote.
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<!-- more -->
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TDD was _designed_ to throw code away: The more you learn about your problem,
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the more you understand that, whatever you wrote, won't solve the problem in
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the long run.
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You shouldn't worry about this. Your code is not a wall: if you have to throw
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it always, it is not wasted material. Surely it means your time writing code
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was lost, but you got a better understanding about the problem now.
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Not only that, but as you progress through your project, solving problems and
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getting "acquainted" with the problem, you'll also notice that the
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[spec](/books/things-i-learnt/spec-first) will also change. This means that the problem you solved
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wasn't exactly the problem you _needed_ to solve; your code is trying to solve
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something that isn't exactly the problem.
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Also, this is really common -- the spec changing, not throwing the code away,
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that is. One thing that you can be sure is that it won't change _everywhere_.
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Some of the things you solved will stay the same, some others will be
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completely removed and some others added. And you will see that you'll
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refactor your code a lot, and throw a lot of code away. And not just code that
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solves the problem, but also the tests for that code.
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... unless you focus mostly on [integration
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tests](/books/things-i-learnt/integration-tests).
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{{ chapters(prev_chapter_link="/books/things-i-learnt/tests-in-the-command-line", prev_chapter_title="Make Tests That You Know How To Run on the Command line") }}
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