Re: [extremeprogramming] The principle behind How Test-Driven Development Works

> 
> Problematic interactions (and miscommunications) are only part of the
> "people problems".  There are outright mistakes, misconceptions, conflicts
> of interests, politics, etc.
> 

In my experience (which is pretty much business application software so may not apply elsewhere) this seems like an odd characterisation of the problem of developing software. I'm not saying it is false, just it seems that "mistakes" are an odd way to think about it.

I would say the primary problem is that people have tacit knowledge of what they want the software to do, but computers need this knowledge to be explicit. So the problem is "getting from tacit knowledge to explicit knowledge in the most effective way", and the most effective way includes having some feedback loops. Someone having tacit but not explicit knowledge doesn't really feel like a "mistake". Yes, people may make mistakes too, and problematic interactions (and miscommunications) may cause issues etc. etc., but fundamentally it is the fact that writing software involves turning tacit knowledge into explicit knowledge, which in turn requires discovery, that makes TDD useful.

Not sure if the distinction is important though!

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