How to actually write a program?

[Peter Hansen]

Dan Sommers wrote:
> Also as a new programmer, the OP is as unlikely to know how to write a
> test, nor how to write a test that fails, nor how to write the code that
> causes the test to pass.

Which is why he was directed to useful links about what TDD
means and how to do it, rather than being told merely to
"write a test".  At least, that's the holistic result of
the various responses, as I see it.  The Dive In To Python
chapter on unit testing, for example, would tell him all he
needs to know to get started doing TDD (as I recall, from the
last time I read it... I assume it hasn't changed much).

> How can he write a test, when he doesn't know how to start to write a
> program?

The key is "how to start", not "how to write".  Go back to
the OP's words: "What I really want to know is, if you are going
to actually write a program or a project of some sort, how do you
actually start."

> TDD assumes that programmers can write programs.

TDD gives people a way of writing programs.  Writing
programs makes them programmers.  ;-)

-Peter