Name: Growing object-oriented software, guided by tests
ISBN: 9780321503626

Growing object-oriented software, guided by tests

Foreword by Kent Beck "The authors of this book have led a revolution in the craft of programming by controlling the environment in which software grows." --Ward Cunningham "At last, a book suffused with code that exposes the deep symbiosis between TDD and OOD. This one's a keeper." --Robert C. Martin "If you want to be an expert in the state of the art in TDD, you need to understand the ideas in this book."--Michael Feathers Test-Driven Development (TDD) is now an established technique for delivering better software faster. TDD is based on a simple idea: Write tests for your code before you write the code itself. However, this "simple" idea takes skill and judgment to do well. Now there's a practical guide to TDD that takes you beyond the basic concepts. Drawing on a decade of experience building real-world systems, two TDD pioneers show how to let tests guide your development and "grow" software that is coherent, reliable, and maintainable. Steve Freeman and Nat Pryce describe the processes they use, the design principles they strive to achieve, and some of the tools that help them get the job done. Through an extended worked example, you'll learn how TDD works at multiple levels, using tests to drive the features and the object-oriented structure of the code, and using Mock Objects to discover and then describe relationships between objects.

What Hacker News says

voiceofunreasonApr 2026

My recommendation: you should probably start from _Working Effectively with Legacy Code_ by Michael Feathers.

The best "let's do something not trivial" TDD book is probably still _Growing Object Oriented Software, Guided by Tests_ by Steve Freeman and Nat Pryce.

Most of the "more than the basics" topics are the same kinds of practices that were considered "good design" whether you were using TDD or not. For example, Parnas 1971, Berard 1993, John Carmack 1998 ("Time is an input...."), and so on.

If you are interested in more than the basics on TDD, the right starting point is _Test Driven Development by Example_ by Kent Beck, which while a bit thin on examples actually covers a nice variety of more advanced topics (although not in great depth). If you are going this route, you should pair that with Beck's 2023 essay "Canon TDD".

thread

Fr3dd1Aug 2025

I had quiet a ride myself with that topic. For years my opinion was, that I dont want to, as the auther here suggests as well, go with tdd as long as I dont know exactly what I need. Than I switched over and used tdd for everything with a more regid (interface) design upfront. Nowadays I use tdd from the integration side and only add unit tests later or case by case when I think its usefull. A really good ressource is "Growing Object-Oriented Software, Guided by Tests"

thread

jansimonekDec 2023

I found the book Growing Object-Oriented Software Guided by Tests to be very inspiring. The book demonstrates how to evolve the code architecture, how and when to add new concepts and abstractions, how to listen to the tests, when to refactor etc. The tech in the examples is dated, but the gist of the book is very relevant.

Another classics are: - Working effectively with legacy code - Refactoring: Improving the Design of Existing Code

All of these books have a lot of depth to them

thread

chris_jMar 2023

On the subject of TDD, the way I've done TDD has been very similar to the technique described in the article. Work in very small increments, try to get a very thin vertical slice of functionality working through the system as soon as possible and, whatever you build, try to get it working end-to-end as soon as you can. Of course, I use tests to drive the work but I find it very helpful to use tests to drive those thin vertical slices of functionality.

The book that really helped me to start working in this way is Growing Object Oriented Software, Guided by Tests by Steve Freeman and Nat Pryce [0]. The book has been around for a few years at this point and tech has moved on since then, as have some of the techniques, but it's still a very interesting read. (Disclosure: I was lucky enough to briefly work with one of the authors a few years ago but I was a fan of the book long before then.)

[0] http://www.growing-object-oriented-software.com/

thread

belfalasJan 2023

Many more beyond this but these are my for sures.

People / Soft Skills:

* How to win friends and Influence People - Dale Carnegie

* Secrets of Consulting - Gerald Weinberg

* Peopleware - Tom DeMarco & Timothy Lister

* Nurtured by Love - Shinici Suzuki

* Turn the Ship Around! - David Marquet

* Never Split the Difference - Chris Voss

http://dhemery.com/articles/resistance_as_a_resource/