Welcome to The Pragmatic Engineer Podcast. I’m your host, and today we’re diving into an inspiring conversation with Kent Beck, the pioneer of Test-Driven Development. Kent reminds us that “tests aren’t just a safety net, they’re a design tool,” helping us shape cleaner, more maintainable code from the very first line. We explore how TDD has evolved since its inception—how writing that first failing test gives you immediate feedback and forces you to think about behavior before implementation.

Then Kent and I tackle the rise of AI agents in software teams. He likens them to “junior engineers who never sleep,” ready to generate code snippets, suggest refactorings, and even catch edge-case bugs. But he cautions: AI tools are only as good as the tests and feedback loops we build around them. When combined with TDD, AI can accelerate development without sacrificing design quality.

Finally, Kent shares his vision for coding’s future: “Our greatest asset isn’t languages or frameworks—it’s our ability to learn continuously.” Whether you’re writing your first unit test or integrating an AI assistant into your workflow, Kent’s insights will help you code more confidently and creatively. Thanks for listening!
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