What is the TDD?

Haci Simsek
2 min readApr 8, 2023

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TDD stands for Test-Driven Development. It is a software development approach where the developer writes automated tests before writing the actual code. The main idea is to write a failing test first, then write the code to make it pass, and finally refactor the code to improve its quality.

The TDD process can be broken down into three steps:

  1. Write a failing test: The first step is to write a test that describes the behavior that you want to implement. Since you haven’t written the code yet, the test should fail.
  2. Write the minimum code to make the test pass: Next, you write the minimum amount of code necessary to make the test pass. This code may not be perfect, but it should satisfy the requirements of the test.
  3. Refactor the code: Once the test is passing, you can refactor the code to improve its quality. This may involve simplifying the code, making it more efficient, or making it easier to read and maintain.
Test-Driven Development

To exemplify Test-Driven Development,

Using Test-Driven Development to implement addition in a simple calculator application:

  • Writing a failing test: First, let’s write a test to ensure that our application can perform addition correctly. This test will fail because we haven’t yet implemented the add function.
  • Writing the minimum amount of code to make the test pass: Now, let’s write the minimum amount of code necessary to make the test pass. This code implements the add function in its simplest form, allowing us to pass the test.
  • Refactoring the code: Finally, we can refactor the code to improve its quality. For example, we might rename the function to sum or add comments to make the code more readable.

Using Test-Driven Development in this way allows us to write more reliable and robust code, catch bugs early on, and avoid costly debugging later in the development process.

The main benefit of TDD is that it helps ensure that the code is thoroughly tested before it’s released, which can reduce the number of bugs and increase the overall quality of the software. It also encourages developers to think more carefully about the design of their code and can help prevent over-engineering or unnecessary complexity.

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Haci Simsek

Software Engineer skilled in Java, React, and software architecture. Passionate about building scalable and maintainable systems.