Maybe the confusion comes from conflating unit testing with TDD. Different but related concepts. If you write a unit test after the code, that is no longer TDD.
TDD is a major change in coding style and doesn't seem to work for a lot of people, including myself. Unit testing, on the other hand, is absolutely essential and fundamental to the task of building large, complex systems.
I haven't read Coders at Work, but if the guys in there are doing their thing without some kind of automated testing, I would be very surprised, and I'd wonder why they're making it so hard on themselves.
But on the other hand unit testing isn't the same as testing. Integration tests, regression tests, stress tests, "miscellaneous automated tests" are all valid sets of tests.
Have you used a language with strong static checking? It might change your mind about the central role of testing. I'm not saying tests are never necessary in such languages, but you can expect to spend orders of magnitude less time thinking about them.
Random guesses are a poor substitute for logical certainty.
TDD is a major change in coding style and doesn't seem to work for a lot of people, including myself. Unit testing, on the other hand, is absolutely essential and fundamental to the task of building large, complex systems.
I haven't read Coders at Work, but if the guys in there are doing their thing without some kind of automated testing, I would be very surprised, and I'd wonder why they're making it so hard on themselves.