What are the benefits of Test-Driven Development (TDD)? Come and play JitterTed’s TDD Game and find out!

TDD is not new, and those who love it swear there is no better way to write code. Yet still it is not the norm: The majority of jobbing software developers do not use TDD. The reasons are various – some feel they don’t have time, others don’t know how, and still others are actively antagonistic towards it. But despite it being deceptively simple to describe (it’s just red-green-refactor, right?), there are many subtleties that make TDD a practice that can be hard to adopt and easy to abandon.

Things that are difficult and take time to learn can also be dispiriting, and this is where an engaging approach such as playing a game can really come into its own. This game has been developed with the goal of experiencing, via both engagement and discussion, not only the many subtle and varied benefits of TDD, but also the pitfalls you can encounter when you’re new to this way of working.

The game has been played at events all over the world and gets an enthusiastic response wherever it goes. Whether your goal is to learn more about TDD or explore a tool you can use to convince others of its benefits, this workshop will be hugely enjoyable.

Attendees will come away with a better understanding of:
* Why Test-Driven Development reduces risk
* The true purpose of the failing (red) test
* The power of taking small, safe steps
* Why writing less code at each step is important
* The use of prediction to verify test validity and code comprehension