The latest issue of CIO Magazine has a featured article on Getting Clueful: 7 Things CIOs Should Know About Agile Development. It includes quotes from a bunch of developers, including some names you’ll surely recognize if you follow Agile discussions at all, like Scott Ambler. In addition to gurus like Scott, there’s also yours truly in there, talking up the value of well-tested code as a long term gain on a short term investment. If you’re trying to adopt some agile practices within your organization, and expecially if you’re looking to incorporate test driven development or continuous integration, this article might provide some good supporting evidence for your case with your manager, or even the CIO.

I’ve built projects with and without tests and continuous integration. The ones built with tests I can go back to a year later and start working on them within minutes without a whole lot of fear. The other ones take a long time before I have any confidence that changes I make aren’t perhaps breaking things somewhere else in the system (and even if I have that confidence, without tests who’s to say I’m not breaking things anyway?). Unless you’re planning to throw away your code within three months, it’s worth your time up front to follow some of these practices.