The push wasn't to test every individual method but to test every individual
code change. This confusion you had was shared by many others and caused havoc because if you unnecessarily couple every single interface in the code base to a test then
every change breaks a test. This became worse for many people than not writing tests at all.
>I have only seen TDD used poorly, as a crutch, an alternative to thinking deeply about the problem space. If it can be done well I have not personally seen it. Perhaps SQLite, but such projects are an oddity.
Theyre not that odd. I've applied it to every type of code base I've come across.
>To me tests at the spec level are largely user acceptance tests which are indeed very useful.
Where I use TDD the tests are exactly like this - written at the highest level possible using a shared framework that integrates sophisticated fakes which carefully balance realism, speed and flakiness. They all follow roughly the same pattern across the code base and that pattern mirrors the spec scenarios.
Where I see TDD used by people who complain about it they usually think the idea is to write a test for a class because they're thinking about writing a class. It is generally taught badly.
