Bastard.

I want to read it, but it’s so damn heavy (as in many pounds). Maybe if I had a PDF version.

I like most of the Shermer books, though I’m not feeling this one.

I also like Hitchens, and this one was a gift. I will read it, I know I will.

New Dawkins is great. I’m 80% done. Every page is evidence for evolution. 450 pages of evidence! I can’t imagine anyone who is honestly curious about evolution not finish the book as *knowing* that evolution is a fact. Of course, the flaw is that people who doubt evolution have many more other opportunities for learning it, and if they haven’t done it by now, they never will and prefer not to know. Or in other words, the book is preaching to the choir.

Genome – outstanding.
Ancestor’s tale – best book of the century so far.
Haven’t enjoyed any Shermer books yet. No reason to believe this would be any better.
E=MC2 – I just read this a couple of weeks ago. Starts very well, tails off a bit at the end. Best intro to relativity I have read.

Hitchens – meh.

Let me know how latest Dawkins is. I have read all of his previous books but I wonder what he has to say that is new.

Maybe I can wait another week…

http://blog.objectmentor.com/articles/2009/10/07/tdd-derangement-syndrome

I also agree that we may never know how Amazon was truly built, though I’m guessing that if any (awesome) company or product had TDD/agile at its core, someone would mention it. Especially nowadays where agile is really a marketing tool and less a software development one.

Though one day I wish I will be able to say that microplace changed the world (and then I can use it as an example of tdd success), I don’t think it’s fair to claim victory yet.

Microplace!

Perhaps unfairly, but I do want to extend “companies” to more than just that. I want to also include inventions, products, even ideas, where the authors got there test first.

Reading books on history of science, or history of inventions, or whatever (and presumably, if an invention/idea/product/works of art makes history, it’s because it has some awesomeness…for the most part), I’m not convinced the authors used test first. Perhaps they did, perhaps that’s how science/art works in the first place. I’m just not seeing it yet. I hope I will though, as like I said, test first/high quality is my bread and butter.

Perhaps you’re right on the TDD/awesomeness non-correlation. In fact, I’m sure TDD can never be the only factor. But all things being equal, awesome strat, etc, what are examples of awesome discoveries/products/inventions/etc where the authors used TDD?

I will take a stab, though: Google Chrome. My understanding is that Google uses their enormous cache of websites to extensively test Chrome (and has throughout the browser’s development). This seems to be test-driven development in every sense of the word, as the test cases are clearly outlined beforehand (the browser must render site x properly) and used as the basis for releasing builds publicly.

However, Chrome has a little more than 1% market share, so it may not meet your definition of an exceptional product (though I believe it is).

Couple that with the points Jeffrey Fredrick makes and the set of awesome TDD stories is cut down even further. It takes a lot more than great software and quality to make a successful product, let alone an awesome one. In the extreme I know of at least two instances where high quality did not align with the business model resulting in overall failure. I have 3 success stories from a client I worked with that were published, but I get the feeling they don’t meet your definition of awesome.

Can you think of 100 awesome companies?
How many truly exceptional individuals are there?
What percentage of all developers actually do TDD?

Looking for the intersection of three small percentages is going to be difficult.

That said, I think awesome companies/products are not correlated with TDD. I think the impact of implementation techniques are dwarfed by product management & corporate strategy.