A Green Rubber Band
test driven development, software development
Bob Martin now wears a small green rubber band. His explanation:
I wear a green band on that I put on about six months ago. This band is a statement of professional ethics. The band signifies that I unit test my code and I know it works.
– Bob Martin SD West 2006
Bob went on to explain that testing 50% of your code isn’t enough that the target should be 100% or at least the high 90s. Do you really want to explain to your customer that you only know that half your code works.
I like the little green band idea, as an obvious visual. I’m not sure it will catch on in the general TDD world, but I like that Bob’s still focusing his considerable presenting skills on convincing developers to test.
Ed Gibbs @ March 20, 2006
I like the idea of the green rubber band. I’ve been trying to get developers at our company to do TDD, with mixed results. Most of them are pretty good about writing tests soon after the fact, but few are in the habit of writing tests first. I think I’ll get some green rubber bands to hand out as rewards. Maybe it will help.
Sounds like you’re doing pretty well. When most of our developers are writing tests soon after the fact it will be a time for a bit of a celebration. Right now they’re often writing tests towards the end of their Sprints as a sort of cleanup item. A small handful are doing TDD.