Ted M. Young joins Jared to discuss Extreme Programming, predictive test-driven development, event sourcing, and teaching software practices through board games. Ted explains how predictive TDD encourages developers to anticipate exactly how a test will fail, leading to deeper understanding, faster feedback, and smaller development steps. He also argues for thinking about tests as either I/O-free or I/O-dependent rather than unit or integration tests, a distinction that naturally supports cleaner architectures and more maintainable code. The conversation explores Ted’s growing enthusiasm for event sourcing, which he sees as a simpler way to model state changes, preserve history, and reduce complexity around persistence and caching. They also discuss his TDD board game, which has become an effective tool for teaching collaboration, pairing, and software development concepts. The episode closes with a look at AI’s impact on software craftsmanship, with Ted expressing concern that developers may learn less by outsourcing problem-solving to LLMs, while remaining optimistic that core XP practices like small steps, clear goals, and rapid feedback will continue to matter—and may be more relevant than ever.
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Test-Driven Development (Kent Beck)
Dead Code Podcast Links:
Jared’s Links: