Lately I've been drafting posts on my daily commute and post them up in batches (just in case you were wondering :). I recall an article (not sure where I read it) about Ron Jeffries and his ability as an 'alpha architect'. Such people are rare, the design they have mostly in their mind with TDD providing a way of slightly reshaping the design and proving the model (in a pair session that can mean validating each other’s ideas). Another kind of folks is the folks that have a general system picture but design a piece at a time with model shaping and validation occurring as they go. Both are no less a way of designing and developing a system but while the 'alpha architect' has considered overall, system considerations and won't introduce design faults, the other folks need to go carefully to avoid those faults. The point that TDD is a design process seems to get missed, writing tests before your code is only part of the process and not the sum total. The trouble I have found is that the design Read More...