TDD is BS?

[Timon Gehr]

On 06/19/2013 11:54 PM, Walter Bright wrote:
> On 6/19/2013 4:01 AM, Szymon Gatner wrote:
>> This is not strictly D related but I am very curious about D's
>> community opinion
>> on the points made by non other than Jim Coplien here:
>
>
> TDD strikes me as an ad-hoc way of constructing code, and is a poor
> substitute for thinking about the problem as a whole. For example, I
> don't really see how getting a square root function to pass its test
> cases is going to lead one to implementing one of the classic algorithms
> for computing square roots. I don't see how TDD for a compiler will lead
> one to rediscover what is known about the best way to organize the logic
> of a compiler.
>
> TDD is "curve fitting" which is what one does when one has no
> understanding.

Concrete example in DMD: 'forward reference error'.

>
> D's support of unit testing is not an endorsement of TDD.