Skip to main content

Skepticism and evaluating methodoligies

March 07, 2012 mgroves 0 Comments
Tags: architecture IoC TDD SOLID

Do you agree with these concepts?

TDD is great, BDD is better. DDD is the way it should be done. SOLID principles should always be followed. Don't repeat yourself. Be agile. Follow the boy scout rule. Use an IoC tool and/or dependency injection. Don't reinvent the wheel. Always normalize your SQL tables. Use AOP to avoid boilerplate and clutter.

I do. And a lot of other people do too. But why? Because:

  • ...it's been drilled into your head by peers and at software conferences?
  • ...you have baggage from a previous job or hate your current job?
  • ...you read about them all in a book like Clean Code, and assumed Uncle Bob knows what he's talking about?

Or have you actually researched and practiced each of these concepts and found them to be superior in many cases to the alternatives (which you've also researched and practiced)?

Well, for me, the answer is: all of the above. Except I don't hate my (current) job.

Yes, I just admitted that I've blindly subscribed to a lot of the tenets that you probably hold dear because of peer pressure and authority figures. This isn't necessarily a bad idea: authority figures and peer pressure can be useful constructs. But independent of your own healthy skepticism and critical thought, they can be dangerous too.

So before you run with any new acronym like BDD or AOP, do your research: see what your peers think, see what authority figures think, and finally use your own brain to put it all together.

Comments

Matthew D. Groves

About the Author

Matthew D. Groves lives in Central Ohio. He works remotely, loves to code, and is a Microsoft MVP.

Latest Comments

Twitter