Anxiety

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Before boarding the RD Station rocket, I was not in the habit of following the TDD philosophy and was inspired by the Brazilian singer Zeca Pagodinho "I've never seen it, never eaten, just hear about it."

When I arrived in my Team and started to get used to the process, my Team guided me to make the test-driven development or TDD.

During my ramp-up in the Team had an opportunity make pair programming e also I made readings about TDD, that in conjunction help me understand and principally what this would give me benefits for me, for Team and company.

I realized the most significant benefit of practicing TDD was the contribution to my mental health - and that's what I share in the following article.

Disclaimer: My expectation with this text is not to make a technical approach to TDD. Here I focus on talking about anxiety and how TDD helps me.

The head a person anxious much times can stay paralyzed and when those thoughts stay around your mind, usually make your mind stay chaotic and confusing. Who undergoes anxiety or undergone, know how works the person's head anxious, and I talk with property, I have an anxiety disorder.

How start? I think I can do it this way .... no, no, it will don't work!

Programming is usually a complex exercise. Costs and deadlines can be challenging to estimate. So if demand were complex or having a bad day, I would probably have problems with anxious thoughts.

All this questioning sometimes paralyzed me, and that could make a task more complex. Even if you don't have an anxiety disorder, you've certainly had anxious thoughts at times, and that's normal. But when you have anxious thoughts, do you remember how difficult it is?

After all, how TDD helps me?

Perform the practice gave me some benefits.

"Test-driven development is a way of managing fear during programming." - Kent Beck

You know when you have a task that you see, and you think, "how do I do this? This looks complex, I don't know how to start."

Your head may be filled with fears. I bet you've felt that way.

Fear is nature's way of telling us, "Hey, stay tuned." Being careful is great, but that care can get in the way when programming, especially when we need to build something complex or have tight deadlines. Fear also causes a number of negative effects:

• We hesitate
• We communicate less
• We move away from feedback
• We feel insecurities
• We get moody

We have concerns that aren't necessary at the time.

TDD should help you:#

• Instead of hesitating, we started to learn quickly.
• Instead of being silent, we communicate more.
• Rather than avoiding feedback, we look for helpful, concrete feedback.
• Instead of feeling insecure, we look to be welcomed into the Team.
• As for the bad mood, as Kent would say, you will need to work alone.

When we have to program a simple solution, the task is easy to imagine and implement, right? No big problems. Now, suppose we need to code a complex solution. In that case, we may feel insecure, we try to solve everything inside our head at once, and we're likely to get tired before we've even done a single line of code.

I like the cover of a book called Essentialism, and I associate it with the cover as follows: On the left, I can say it's my head when I'm suffering from anxious thoughts, and on the right, when I'm starting with the essentials, which means I need to pass the first test and then worry about the next step. I need to make this first test pass.

Other benefits#

• To better understand what should and should not be implemented, tdd gives you the opportunity to learn all the lessons the code has to teach.
• If something is too difficult to test, you may need to review your implementation responsibilities.
• The test passed, you don't have to worry about it anymore.
• If you refactor, the tests will give you peace of mind not to let anything broken pass.
• When the Team adopts the TDD practice, you trust your deliverables and trust your colleagues' deliverables
• When you deliver your demand, the chance of causing a bug will be much smaller.
• Focusing on one small step at a time makes you more agile.

In short, TDD won't make your anxiety or mine go away, but practice will definitely play a valuable role in your process.

🧘 Remember the TDD Mantra 🧘#

"First do it, then do it right, then do it better"—Addy Osmani

With TDD your peace of mind thanks you, your Team vibrates, and of course, your user will be happy too.

We've reached the end of the text, but not the end of your journey with TDD—I hope so!

Take TDD's word forward, practice, and reap the benefits.

Reference: Test Driven Development: By Example