Chapter 29. Should You Use TDD on Freelance Projects? – Comparing Quality Versus Speed
When approaching a new freelance project, one of the first questions many developers and designers ask is:
Do you want it done fast… or properly?
In this chapter, I'm going to specifically discuss if you should use TDD on freelance projects. However, the concepts I'll discuss now apply to any type of quality control system. So, this is great advice for any developer.
Quality versus Speed
There's an old software engineering rule that states that there are three options you have when building a project:
- Quality
- Speed
- Cost
This diagram represents the principle as a Venn diagram. The elusive center is where you have a project that's built quickly, for a low price, and was created with industry-wide best practices. In my experience, it's rare for a project to reside inside of this sweet spot. Instead, I'll tell clients that they can pick two out of the three...
