From what I understand author is not questioning the usefulness of testing, just TDD approach of writing tests first. I personally prefer a sandwich approach, I start with code first, and then write tests for it as soon as I have that little piece of logic finished (usually a method or two). Then I add more code, followed by more test, and so on. Works great for me and my team.
I nowadays do an approach where I don't write tests first, but I write down the test titles (I use a language where the testing framework gives a nice DSL to write nicely readable test names compared to method names) and I just mark them as pending (which will report as no test failures or passes but ignored cases). I rarely end up with the same test ideas and names which I started from, but since I only start with names which do not hinder refactorings this worked out surprisingly nicely for me.
My impression, too, the author explicitly says he understands value of unit testing and will continue to do it, but he's going to give up on the idea of writing tests before he writes the actual program code. Strange, from what I can tell 90+ percent of comments in this thread treat the author as if he said he was giving up tests entirely.
I agree. If people started viewing coding as an art instead of a strict science I think people would feel more comfortable doing something like this instead of a strict Test First or Test After.
