Closing In On Test-Driven.

There are four stages of learning. An uncle of mine told me about these after he'd been through rehabilitation from a brain injury. I've since found them listed in many places.

With TDD, I'm feeling stage III (conscious competence) kicking in. I still have the strong instinctive pressure to go to code and fix code, then write tests to prove it's fixed. That's from past habit, and because subconsciously I know that writing the tests is more work for me than fixing the code. It's hard to maintain discipline, and I struggle with it especially on small changes.

I must not be test driven yet (NTDY?) because when I go test-first, it doesn't change what I write. I've not seen super powers (or any increased productivity) yet.

If I were going from "no test" to "test first" it would be a more exciting and empowering change. Instead this is like switching from diet pepsi to diet coke, except Coca-Cola doesn't require me to learn a bunch of new testing and mock frameworks.

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