TDD == PDCA

It's no doubt completely obvious to everyone else but yesterday I was struck by the parallel between Deming's Plan-Do-Check-Act and test-driven-development, in particular test-first-development:

• Plan - write a failing test (red-grape)
• Do - write code to make it pass
• Check - run the test to see if it passes (green-grape?)
• Act - what was the outcome? what will you do now?

The photo of PDCA is from page 143 of Toyota Kata by Mike Rother.

No abstraction

Years ago, when my children were still at primary school I was asked to dress up as santa. I stuffed a few cushions under a big red santa costume, lalloped into the room where all the bright eyed kids were waiting, and after a few ho ho ho's I said

Do you know who I am?

to which one of the kids at the back shouted

You're Patrick's Dad.

Kids are great like that.
They're so direct.
They say it exactly as they see it.