Building Operable Software with TDD (but not the way you think)
summary
Argues that tests should exercise service boundaries not mocked internals, showing a working, production‑like .NET system built over two years that uses outside-in testing with WebApplicationFactory, SQLite for realistic DB checks, and open telemetry traces captured and sent to Honeycomb. Claims ~2,500 developer tests run in eight seconds, yields actionable traces to assert cache vs DB calls, avoids heavy mocking, drives contract-first TDD and enables near‑100% meaningful coverage.
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chapters (18)
- 0:00Intro
- 2:51Building for Production
- 6:28What do we mean by TDD
- 8:19Test-Driven Development (The good)
- 10:49Let's Talk Component testing UNIT TESTS PASSING
- 13:49Outside-in Testing (Benefits)
- 19:17Lets look at some code
- 21:13Readable Tests (Remove Implementation)
- 22:33Readable Tests (Add Context)
- 23:08Readable Tests (Add Test Specific Asserts)
- 24:48Readable Tests (Persistence with API checks)
- 26:39What have we tested?
- 31:15What can't we test this way?
- 37:19Let's Look at some caching code
- 39:00Lets Add OpenTelemetry to the Tests
- 44:19Refactor for readability
- 45:04Parallel Processing
- 49:02Useful reading/watching
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