Recently I have been talking a lot about embedded TDD to different, mostly experienced, embedded programmers. I thought I would jump right into a bit more advanced issues, to start a discussion, and maybe walk out with few new things myself. After all they were excellent programmers. I didn't want to waste the opportunity to learn.
During these sessions I have seen a lot of nodding people. I have though that "wow, I'm pretty good at explaining this". I have left with a smile on my face after a huge sense of agreement. I know better now. It's a much longer journey than one day seminar.
The challenge, or one of them, as I realize now, is that if you give a basic introduction with mickey mouse stuff examples to experienced embedded developers you will be immediatelly shot down with "that won't work in our environment, because [choose your favorite item identified on Embedded Agile Yahoo group]".
On the other hand if you rush straight into embedded TDD specific stuff, people are going to just nod.
And this is the other end of the same challenge. They are nodding so that you would go away faster. Not understanding fully is scary for a seasoned engineer who has not opened a book in the past 15 years or so. This nodding experience alone is not going to make anyone start practicing TDD. The best is to give a hands-on experience on TDD itself, show the benefit, and not on mickey mouse stuff but on real deal.
Advice that I'm going to follow is to try to remember when I was also just nodding and how many years, books, articles, conferences, talks, discussions, trials, failures, small successes, and so on, it took for me to get it. And I'm still only beginning to understand TDD.
