I agree with you. But one little moment. In the last point you're mention that programs is overwhelming - it's ok!
But, I think that TDD in the beginning of the way it's good practice.
Yes it's difficult to understand, but it sets good tone of you code.
Even if it's hard for beginners, it is better to practice it from the very beginning.
P.s sorry for my English.
I'm a small business programmer. I love solving tough problems with Python and PHP. If you like what you're seeing, you should probably follow me here on dev.to and then checkout my blog.
My (limited) experience has been that programming is absolutely overwhelming and that beginners progress faster if you can reduce the cognitive load as much as possible.
So I would try to get them comfortable with the basics, once that's achieved, you can add an IDE, then static analysis, then unit tests. And once they get unit tests, you can add TDD.
If someone dropped me in a brand new language with completely new tools and an unfamiliar IDE, I'd probably resist writing in TDD from the start. It's just way too much.
But, that's just my experience. If you've had good success starting with TDD, that's great.
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Hello Blaine,
I agree with you. But one little moment. In the last point you're mention that programs is overwhelming - it's ok!
But, I think that TDD in the beginning of the way it's good practice.
Yes it's difficult to understand, but it sets good tone of you code.
Even if it's hard for beginners, it is better to practice it from the very beginning.
P.s sorry for my English.
My (limited) experience has been that programming is absolutely overwhelming and that beginners progress faster if you can reduce the cognitive load as much as possible.
So I would try to get them comfortable with the basics, once that's achieved, you can add an IDE, then static analysis, then unit tests. And once they get unit tests, you can add TDD.
If someone dropped me in a brand new language with completely new tools and an unfamiliar IDE, I'd probably resist writing in TDD from the start. It's just way too much.
But, that's just my experience. If you've had good success starting with TDD, that's great.