I have been a developer for a long time and have always spent much more time testing than writing code. I think double would be pretty close. It got me in trouble with one employer who said that testing was for programmers who didn’t know what they were doing to begin with. The only lesson I learned from that was that testing was for those who DO know what they are doing. That shop spent more time fixing their untested code than moving on to new projects.

Long before agile was a buzzword I used some of its principles. I like to use the term “iterative development”. Iterations involve the customer and other stakeholders. An iteration lasts about two weeks and involves testing. Each iteration results in cleaner code until the user says we’re finished. I don’t know if the iterative process shortens the development lifecycle. What I do know is that it results in happy customers because they get what they want and they know it works properly. There is very little fixing to do afterwards. Another thing that’s good about the iterative process is that it keeps me on track. I tend to procrastinate and having short term deadlines helps keep me focused.

Tom