This is the first developer conference I’ve attended in my 10+ year career. First of many I hope, but I’m a little excited over all. Looking forward to learning a ton, especially after an invigorating opening keynote from @dhh.
I overheard a lot of interesting comments as the mob exited the hall after the keynote finished. The ones that stand out the most are the ones where it sounded like people were back peddling to their comfort zone of “Coverage, ratio, and speed” (Props to @mehulkar for helping remember that bit.)
My buddy, colleague, and essentially my boss summed it up perfectly in this mid-talk tweet. I think that’s how most of us are feeling because we have been made aware that we’ve been caught up in a non-pragmatic but well meaning dogma of TDD. I know I feel guilty for not testing as much as I “should” many days.
I’m trying to keep this brief so I can focus on the next talk. I want to say that if you find yourself:
* Trying to defend yourself for doing TDD
* Angry at DHH for criticizing TDD
* Angry at yourself for falling to dogma
Relax. Take a deep breath. Forgive yourself. Move on. Learn. We can’t be “right” all the time. Being “wrong” is how you grow as a developer.
EDIT: The Keynote speech this post talks about is now online here. DHH also wrote a follow up blog post here. The first couple opening sentences are very revealing of his motivations for the speech and very important for understanding how harsh developers can be to each other.
It’s OK To Be Wrong #railsconf 2014
This is the first developer conference I’ve attended in my 10+ year career. First of many I hope, but I’m a little excited over all. Looking forward to learning a ton, especially after an invigorating opening keynote from @dhh.
I overheard a lot of interesting comments as the mob exited the hall after the keynote finished. The ones that stand out the most are the ones where it sounded like people were back peddling to their comfort zone of “Coverage, ratio, and speed” (Props to @mehulkar for helping remember that bit.)
My buddy, colleague, and essentially my boss summed it up perfectly in this mid-talk tweet. I think that’s how most of us are feeling because we have been made aware that we’ve been caught up in a non-pragmatic but well meaning dogma of TDD. I know I feel guilty for not testing as much as I “should” many days.
I’m trying to keep this brief so I can focus on the next talk. I want to say that if you find yourself:
* Trying to defend yourself for doing TDD
* Angry at DHH for criticizing TDD
* Angry at yourself for falling to dogma
Relax. Take a deep breath. Forgive yourself. Move on. Learn. We can’t be “right” all the time. Being “wrong” is how you grow as a developer.
EDIT: The Keynote speech this post talks about is now online here. DHH also wrote a follow up blog post here. The first couple opening sentences are very revealing of his motivations for the speech and very important for understanding how harsh developers can be to each other.