Introduction
If you’ve ever been in a room full of developers, you’ve probably noticed something funny: we love putting three-letter acronyms on everything. Over the past months, I’ve been exploring what I now call driven development lessons—the good, the bad, and sometimes the ridiculous—from classic methodologies to modern practices, and even meme-inspired chaos.
Over the past months, I went down the rabbit hole of different “driven” approaches to development, the evolution of modern practices, and even the wild world of meme-driven decision making. (Yes, that’s a thing—and yes, it can be dangerous.)
This post is my attempt to connect the dots. Think of it as a highlights reel: what works, what doesn’t, and what we can all learn if we don’t want our projects—or our sanity—to crash and burn.
Short Overview
These driven development lessons show how each acronym solves a unique pain point.
The Many “Driven” Acronyms
Let’s start with the classics. I wrote about TDD, BDD, ATDD, DDD, and FDD—basically, the alphabet soup of development. Each one tries to solve a specific problem:
- TDD makes you write tests first, so your code doesn’t wander off into chaos.
- BDD focuses on user behavior, forcing you to ask, “what does the app really need to do?”
- ATDD gets devs, testers, and business folks in the same room before things go sideways.
- DDD goes deep into modeling the business domain so everyone speaks the same language.
- FDD is all about features—ship small, visible wins, and keep momentum.
The truth? None of these is a silver bullet. But taken together, they form a toolkit. Like a developer’s version of Pokémon—gotta catch ’em all, but you only use the ones that fit the battle in front of you.
Modern Practice-Driven Development
Next, I zoomed out to what I call “practice-driven development.” Think less about rules and more about habits. Today’s development isn’t just about writing code; it’s about how we integrate, deploy, and document.
- CI/CD keeps us honest by testing and shipping continuously.
- Trunk-based development avoids those scary “merge Fridays” (you know the ones).
- Documentation-driven workflows mean fewer “Wait, what did you mean by that?” moments.
What’s exciting is how these practices fit together. They’re not just processes—they’re safety nets. When done right, they free you to move faster without breaking everything in production.
The Rise of Meme-Driven Development
And then there’s the fun (and slightly scary) one: meme-driven development.
This is when a product team builds features because they saw a trend go viral on X (or Twitter, or TikTok, or whatever’s hot this week). Suddenly, you’re shipping something that looks cool in a screenshot but doesn’t actually help your users.
It’s hilarious until it’s not. Meme-driven decisions can burn time, budget, and team morale. It’s like trying to cook dinner with only trending TikTok recipes—you might end up with something edible, but probably not something you can eat every day.
Summary and Lessons Learned
The biggest of all driven development lessons? Choose your drivers wisely.
- If you let tests, behaviors, and acceptance criteria drive you, you’ll likely build reliable software.
- If you let domain knowledge and features guide you, you’ll get clarity and steady progress.
- If you lean into modern practices, you’ll scale faster and keep the ship stable.
- But if you follow memes and hype, you risk building for laughs instead of value.
Here’s what I keep coming back to:
- Mix, don’t marry. TDD might help in one project, while DDD shines in another. Use what works, leave what doesn’t.
- Keep evolving. Practices like CI/CD or trunk-based dev aren’t fads—they’re survival skills.
- Filter the noise. Memes can spark ideas, but strategy and user needs should make the final call.
- Remember the people. At the end of the day, all these acronyms and practices exist to help teams work together and build stuff users actually want.
For me, writing these three articles was a reminder that software development isn’t about loyalty to one method. It’s about staying curious, experimenting with practices, and avoiding the trap of chasing the latest shiny thing.
And hey, if we can laugh a little along the way (preferably at our own mistakes), that’s not such a bad driver either.
