Bugs Cost $$$ to Fix in Production
The trouble with estimating the cost of a defect is simple: nobody can know how high the cost will grow, nor how fast. News reels are filled with stories of simple defects that have cost companies their reputation and hundreds of millions of dollars, such as the Equifax leak, the Mt. Gox Bitcoin hack, the Boeing 737 Max crashes, the Volkswagen emissions sensor, and many more.
TDD reduces bug density by up to 80%, according to a IEEE Computer Society study in 2007. By Ron Jeffries & Grigori Melnik.
Teams often estimate that a bug in production can cost 100x more than fixing during development. But in 2004, NASA published research showing the upper range is actually 1500x. Stecklein, et al, 20100036670.
And the average cost of downtime is $300K/hour according to Gartner Research. Andrew Lerner, 2004.
Why this Workshop
If I could go back in time and give my younger self some advice:
- I wish I would have known then what I know now about Venture Capital;
- Writing code with great developers is the fastest way to learn how to write better code;
- And I wish I would have learned TDD on day 1.
How Does It Work & Who Is It For?
We write code for three consecutive days — together, 1-on-1. We practice TDD as we work through code challenges together. We begin with hypothetical tasks such as the well-known FizzBuzz or 100 Doors challenge. When one’s grasp of the TDD pattern is sufficient, we move to more advanced techniques involving mocks, fakes, and spies. We explore the differences between unit, integration, end-to-end, and UI testing.
Junior developers, or those new to TDD, usually leave the third day well-equipped to continue the practice and write unit tests (in their preferred language) with confidence.
Senior developers, or those with prior TDD experience, usually leave the third day well-equipped to share TDD techniques with others and perhaps to faciliate their own workshops.
