Brian Maricks comment

I had a previous post that critiqued one of Brians papers (extremely briefly).

Brian Responded to the post recently:

"On an Agile project, I lean much more heavily toward automated tests. For my thinking along those lines, see this: http://www.testing.com/writings/2004-roadmap.htmland this: http://www.testing.com/cgi-bin/blog/2004/05/26#directions-toc"

Very good articles I have read before. I think the point that I was trying to make (no doubt badly) is that on agile projects the automated tests change the way you develop. How do they change the way you develop? As a developer they give you confidence about change (yours and others).

Up until about 4 years ago when I was doing test-after development I lacked confidence about changing stuff. It became slower, more planned and less experimental.

Confidence is what has changed my development practices. Confidence means that code goes from rigid to putty. That has been a fundamental and significant change in the way developers work.