As my first real dive into test driven development, this book was a great introduction into the practices and the habits that are involved. The one thing that I wish I had done when I started reading is actually trying to implement the examples that are in the book, as I think the practical side would have helped the examples sink in a little bit more.

Saying that, I learn really well from books, and I had no trouble following the code examples from one to another and having the changes written in such small steps certainly helped.

Beck’s explanations were great to help the concepts really solidify and he had a writing style that made the book much more fun to read than I expected it to be.

“Write the tests you wish you had. If you don’t, you will eventually break something while refactoring. Then you’ll get bad feelings about refactoring and stop doing it so much. Then your designs will deteriorate. You’ll be fired. Your dog will leave you. You will stop paying attention to your nutrition. Your teeth will go bad. So, to keep your teeth healthy, retroactively test before refactoring.”

I understand that to most people, TDD is not complicated, it’s just habit, but having never done it before and not having come from an environment where time is given to testing, this book was a great way to learn what I should have been doing all along. And being able to put some of the techniques into practice at work has been great, I think that’s what will really cement the knowledge for me.