Don’t fear the unknown. I felt insecure early in my career and would get nervous when pairing with developers who knew what they were doing. Part of me didn’t want to admit I didn’t know how to test so I shunned it instead.

Start early in your career. It makes you a better coder that thinks more clearly about the code you are writing. Testing is important and shouldn’t just be practiced by experienced developers.

It’s never too late to start. I started writing tests roughly 4 years into my career. Find a friend who will show you the way. Take a course or read a book. I personally learned from a 3 month stint of intensive pairing.

Practice on non production code. You can use my Android kata video workshop to learn the most common tests you’ll write in your day to day development. It helps break the preciousness that you sometimes feel for your code.

Your development process is nonnegotiable. Don’t let management or clients dictate your process. Don’t include it in your estimates or even tell them that you are doing it. Show others how to add tests and spread the joy of testing person to person throughout the organization.

Don’t trade short term gains for long term pain. People think that it’s harder and more work to write tests. This is true if you only focus on the short term. It’s much easier to write the tests up front and have a safety net than it is to debug issues later!