Test Delayed Development

Here's a heterodoxy born out of weakness.

Tests are Delaying my Development.

I love the idea of Test-Driven Development (TDD). C# and NUnit go together like Flintoff and Injuries. But I'm writing an ASP.Net web site and I just can't get going on TDD for it.

I'm trying to change the security model. I have written my own provider. I can test my code using NUnit. But I can't at the moment test the code through NUnit when it touches the Microsoft classes like MembershipUser. I suspect this is because the live environment uses web.config, and I don't know what steps to take to get it to work in NUnit.

So instead I try to test the website using Watir. This means learning a new language, Ruby, just for testing. And open source packages like Watir and Rspec, which take constructive guesswork on how to do things.

All of which delays my development. Preferred solution for me is to have a pair who understands this stuff so I can just get on with the programming. I'm not against new languages and new techniques but by golly they do take time.

Time which delays the development. Hmm. This is written on the first working day of September 2007. I shall see whether I still find this in December, in March.