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I am not dismissing Basecamp. I am just saying that in a large portion of the software world, applications are waaaay more complex than normal rails apps. And in that context, TDD makes sense if only to manage complexity. Even if you are not Facebook, but say Airbnb. If their tests are not fast enough and they cannot trust them to make decisions, they wouldn't be able to deploy in a reasonable time. And when slow tests lead to infrequent deployments, that's when the real problems begin. (Airbnb is an arbitrary choice which came from the top of my mind, not anything specific)

My gut feeling is that >50% of software development happens in those complex apps and not rails apps. So dismissing TDD is just yet another extreme viewpoint, which many people will unfortunately take for granted.




AFAIK Airbnb uses Ruby and Rails to some extent. An actual job offer lists it as a requisite: https://www.airbnb.com/jobs/departments/position/2192


I think the counter argument may be that TDD actually adds complexity to a system by destroying the architecture. So I am interested in what particular arguments you have in how TDD manages complexity instead of increasing it.




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