Effectiveness of Test-Driven Development as an SDLC Model: A Case Study of an Elevator Controller Design

Test-driven development (TDD) is a new software development model where codes are written to meet the tests as specified from the specs. It is an agile method and claims to be more effective and efficient than the traditional waterfall (and other derivative) SDLC models. In this paper we use the development of an elevator controller as a target system and compare TDD against waterfall through independent development. Using three progressive “versions” of elevator system, we show the advantages of TDD over Waterfall.