2025-09-19 –, Space 4
Find out what TDD is, and what it gives you over and above writing the tests after the fact. Including, perhaps, a solution to some of the common failure modes of AI codegen.
Automated testing is now common in the Python community, but many of the now-grizzled veterans of the agile movement argued for something more: test-driven development. There are many misconceptions about what TDD is and why people advocate for it, so come and find out all about it in this session, which will include
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An interactive demonstration of TDD, the red-green-refactor loop, incremental development, outside-in, "simplest possible changes", and more...
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A chance to try it out yourself!
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Some tips for how to get your AI companion to work in a TDD way, thus avoiding some of its most egregious failure modes.
Basic
After an idyllic childhood spent playing with BASIC on French 8-bit computers whose keys go "boop" when you press them, Harry spent a few years in the wilderness of Economics and Powerpoint, before rediscovering his true geek nature in the late aughts. He was lucky enough to fall in with a bunch of XP fanatics, working on the pioneering but sadly defunct Resolver One python-spreadsheet. Since then he has since written two books, one on TDD and one on software architecture patterns. He currently works at Kraken Technologies, an offshot of green energy retailer Octopus Energy.