The real first step: Having an IDEA

There are three traditional steps in the Test Driven Development [TDD] cycle:

RED – write a failing test
Green – make it pass
Refactor – make it easier to read without changing it

There is another step that has to happen, but doesn’t actually involve coding. You have to have a conception – in your mind – of what you want to do. You have to have an idea.

Look at the following Gherkin scenario, and see if you can figure out what is happening here. It is only three lines, and it is actually a single sentance in English. Stare at it until you feel that you compleately understand, in your mind, what is expected to happen:


Can you dig it?
There should be a shortcode [first-testable-shortcode] that expands to display "Hello world!" when viewed from the frontend.

This is a typical feature request from a business stakeholder. It is the expected feature that doesn’t exist yet, but we are going to make it exist by developing it with TDD!