In the previous post I started with in theory.One thing I've found is that what would help tremendously with large production projects results from epiphenomena in code, and is sometimes not what is sexy from a language design standpoint.
I am part of a team that develops a very large .NET (with C#) product with hundreds of projects in the solution. So far the primary use of tests is to be maintained. They caught a few bugs, true, but nothing that our QAs were not going to see anyway.
I was a fly on the wall when Extreme Programming was being formulated in Smalltalk. (Not part of the Chrysler C3 project, but I was working for a Smalltalk vendor and heard about what was going on.) Test Driven Development, or at least good Unit Test coverage, is essential for an agile style project in a language like Smalltalk. I'm not so sure unit tests are as essential for languages like C#. TDD does produce more testable code, but it has considerable "cultural overhead."
Two important questions to ask are: What aids refactoring? What stops refactoring? The answers to these questions are also different for large codebases as opposed to small ones. I have noticed that Swift's enums are tremendously useful in this regard, but they are not "sexy" so this doesn't get discussed very much.
One thing I've found is that what would help tremendously with large production projects results from epiphenomena in code, and is sometimes not what is sexy from a language design standpoint.
I am part of a team that develops a very large .NET (with C#) product with hundreds of projects in the solution. So far the primary use of tests is to be maintained. They caught a few bugs, true, but nothing that our QAs were not going to see anyway.
I was a fly on the wall when Extreme Programming was being formulated in Smalltalk. (Not part of the Chrysler C3 project, but I was working for a Smalltalk vendor and heard about what was going on.) Test Driven Development, or at least good Unit Test coverage, is essential for an agile style project in a language like Smalltalk. I'm not so sure unit tests are as essential for languages like C#. TDD does produce more testable code, but it has considerable "cultural overhead."
Two important questions to ask are: What aids refactoring? What stops refactoring? The answers to these questions are also different for large codebases as opposed to small ones. I have noticed that Swift's enums are tremendously useful in this regard, but they are not "sexy" so this doesn't get discussed very much.