I've been making my living as a programmer since around 1980. Never one time has someone written tests for me. Never one time have I seen anyone else write tests for anyone else.

I, personally, have written tests for other people's code, but that was because there were no tests at all.

You've clearly missed the whole point of testing. Most testing does not involve looking at code and trying to see bugs in it. Much more of it involves coming up with a set of test cases that adequately covers the range of inputs that will be seen in the real world.

I write tests in my own code, and I constantly find bugs when I do, because I'm testing results.

What's funny is that I am not a TDD advocate. I'm an anti-TDD guy who happens to write a huge number of tests.

The big issue with TDD is one you barely mentioned - writing the tests before the code. The trouble with this is in the early stages of development, when every time you re-organize your API, you have to rewrite your tests. More, I am trying with my tests to particularly test the areas I feel are going to actually have bugs in them, and before I have written the code, I don't know what these are.

Oh, don't get me wrong. Almost every commit I make, from the start, has some sort of tests, only smoke tests, but I write them after the code each time.

Also, the weird rant about "Xtreme" programming!

First, no one ever called it "Xtreme" programming - if you search for that in Google, it corrects you. It's "Extreme" Programming, and people call it XP. Yes, that's a dumb name, and most people call it "Agile" these days.

I remember before these concepts appeared - everything was done "waterfall" style, and often you would labor for months to build something that management would realize was useless after it was all done.

The short sprint idea of Agile/XP is a good one. The idea that we should be estimating everything and keeping track of our velocity is a good one. Both of these were a breath of fresh air in the 90s.

Beyond that, well, Agile is just more snake oil.

However, it's bizarre and strange to blame "Xtreme" for people going to therapy or hospitals. Burnout due to overwork has been an issue in computer programming since the 1970s. If you recall, one of the Apple Newton programmers committed suicide, and that was long before XP was a thing at all.

As described, Agile should lead to less burnout, because instead of months or even years of continuous work, you have short cycles where you are supposed to get a break at the end.

In practice, well, you don't really see managers doing that, but there's really no reason why Agile would lead to more burnout.