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test-driven development

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Also known as TDD

software development methodology involving repetition of a very short development cycle: requirements are turned into very specific test cases, then the software is improved to pass the new tests, only

~22 min read

Encyclopedic overview

Test-driven development (TDD) is a way of writing code that involves writing an automated unit-level test case that fails, then writing just enough code to make the test pass, then refactoring both the test code and the production code, then repeating with another new test case.

Alternative approaches to writing automated tests is to write all of the production code before starting on the test code or to write all of the test code before starting on the production code. With TDD, both are written together, therefore shortening debugging time necessities.

Excerpted from Wikipedia’s “test-driven development” article, available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 licence.