Why is design-by-contract not so popular compared to test-driven development?

Question

You may think this question is like this question asked on StackOverflow earlier. But I am trying to look at things differently.

In TDD, we write tests that include

Answer 1

The main problem with DBC is that in the vast majority of cases, either the contract cannot be formally specified (at least not conveniently), or it cannot be checked with current static analysis tool. Until we get past this point for mainstream languages (not Eiffel), DBC will not give the kind of assurance that people need.

In TDD, tests are written by a human being based on the current natural-text specifications of the method that are (hopefully) well-documented. Thus, a human interprets correctness by writing the test and gets some assurance based on that interpretation.

If you read Sun's guide for writing JavaDocs, it says that the documentation should essentially lay out a contract sufficient to write a test plan. Hence, design by contract is not necessarily mutually exclusive with TDD.

Answer 2

I see no reason why both cannot co-exist. It is wonderful to look at a method and know at a glance exactly what the contract is. It is also wonderful to know that I can run my unit tests and know that nothing was broken with my last change. The two techniques are not mutually exclusive. Why design by contract is not more popular is a mystery.

Answer 3

I see Design By Contract as a specification for success/failure in ALL cases, whereas Test Driven Development targets ONE specific case. If the TDD case succeeds, then it is assumed a function is doing it's job, but it doesn't take into account other cases that could cause it to fail.

Design By Contract on the other hand doesn't necessary guarantee the desired answer, only that the answer is "correct." For example, if a function returns is supposed to return a non-null string, the only thing you can assume in the ENSURE is that it will not be null.

But maybe it doesn't not return the string that was expected. There is no way for a contract to be able to determine that, only a Test can show that it was performing according to the specification.

So the two are complementary.

Greg