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No. TDD is as top-down as it can be.

« Test-driven development (TDD) is a software development process relying on software requirements being converted to test cases before software is fully developed, and tracking all software development by repeatedly testing the software against all test cases. This is as opposed to software being developed first and test cases created later. » [1]

[1] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Test-driven_development




Then what do you call it where you write programs bottom-up but still write test cases before implementation? Because that's the most common approach that I've seen being done and called TDD.


I call it wasting time trying to fit square pegs in round holes. Many things and approaches have their virtues and their place, be it top-down, bottom-up or tests. Silver bullet techniques and dogma have absolutely none.


Not my experience, shrug.


That's when you adopt other XP practices in addition to TDD.


Perhaps it can be both bottom-up and top-down depending on your mindset.


Then it’s not test « driven ».




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