Developer Perceptions of Process Desirability: Test Driven Development and Cleanroom Compared

Design and coding processes are an important part of an overall project methodology. However, perceptions of these processes influence how developers use them. A process perceived as desirable is more likely to be sustainable than one that is not. Test Driven Development has gained popularity in recent decades and we compared its perceived desirability with that of Clean room. Developers were given projects to complete using the processes and reported on their experience via a survey. Survey results were analyzed statistically to see if perceptions varied. No significant difference was discovered between the two processes in any of 5 subjective categories rated and developer comments indicated they would prefer a hybrid process. We recommend developers integrate ideas from both TDD and Clean room into their development processes.