Great Obstacles

I just put my daughter to sleep, and then pulled up to the computer to start reading the first chapter of Roy Osherove's new book "The Art Of Unit Testing".

"The first few months of the project were great; things were looking up, and we had tests that proved that our code worked. As time went by, requirements changed, and we were forced to change our code to fit those new requirements. Whenever we changed the code, tests broke and we had to fix them - the code was still working, but the tests we wrote were so brittle that any little change in our code broke them, even though the code was working just fine. It became a daunting task to change our code in a class or a method for fear of changing all the unit tests involved with that unit being tested." Roy Osherove, The Art of Unit Testing

After reading this opening paragraph, I slumped in my chair and realized that I was guilty of this on our current project. I've written such brittle "unit tests" that I was afraid to make changes to the code base in fear of breaking the units tests and having to update the unit tests. I was on a bit of a high with the TDD kick but now I'm feeling a little low.

After reading the first free chapter from Mr. Roy Osherove's book I decided to check my inbox. Here's what I found:

Dear Mr. Mo
I would like to take this opportunity to thank you for being so helpful during our school year together. I have experienced new classmates and they are umm the only way to put it is not YOU. I don't know I guess I just learned better when you were around lol. You would always help me when I was in a pinch...

I guess I'm righting this cuz I'm kinda bored for one and my lab partner just dropped the course and I miss you MO, come back!!!

I'm re-energized, I feel great! It's amazing how kind words, at just the right time, can make a remarkable impact on someone's life. Although, the note was thanking me, I feel like the thankful one. Thank you so much Mr. Jae!

This reminded me of a great quote:

"With each great obstacle, comes an opportunity to improve our condition." - Booker T. Washington