I find that test-driven advocates border on a religious way of thinking about software development, and I also find it sucks joy out of coding.

Does that mean I don't think tests are valuable – no, that's not what I'm saying. There are critical pieces of code where testing will bring you more joy because you'll catch very bad bugs that would have really ruined your day.

But as a way of constructing an application, it just has always felt really dull and uninspiring.

I know people will vehemently disagree with this. But, sometimes you gotta write the novel once to know what story you're telling. Then you can go back, edit, put tests in the critical places.