Software Development Best Practices

How Friction Slows Us Down

I once joined a project where running the “unit” tests took three and a half hours.

As you may have guessed, the developers didn’t run the tests before they checked in code, resulting in a frequently red build. Running the tests just gave too much friction for the developers.

I define friction as anything that resist the developer while she is producing software.

Since then, I’ve spotted friction in numerous places while developing software.