BDD / TDD criticized

[StefanHoutzager]

Discussion on twitter with Ron Jeffries etc.

@Hillelogram
We were developing a product continually, iteratively, designing and implementing in short sprints. We had continual customer feedback and agile adaptation. We used TDD. This is the way that people recommend designing, see, LinkedIn …, LinkedIn …, etc.

@allenholub
I used to do all that. I found that almost all those activities were waste (in the Lean sense). By the time the code was complete, it didn’t look much like that up-front design. I was better off designing incrementally as I worked.
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@Hillelogram
This worked… poorly. For two years. And this wasn’t a junior project! People with tons of experience were building this. We were “designing” things right, as engineers are supposed to design. And it didn’t work, and the fires kept burning. It was too essentially complex.

https://twitter.com/Hillelogram/status/1107754119627001859