That's great for rote work, simple CRUD, and other things where you already know how the code should work so you can write a test first. Not all programming works well that way. I often have a goal I want to achieve, but no clue exactly how to get there at first. It takes quite a lot of experimentation, iteration and refinement before I have anything worth testing - and I've been programming 40+ years, so it's not because I don't know what I'm doing.
Not every approach works for every problem, still we’re all writing a lot of straightforward code over our careers. I also find longer term projects eventually favor TDD style coding as over time unknown unknowns get filled in.
Your edge case depends on the kind of experimentation you’re doing. I sometimes treat CSS as kind of black magic and just look for the right incantation that happens to work across a bunch of browsers. It’s not efficient, but I’m ok punting because I don’t have the time to become an expert on everything.
On the other hand when looking for an efficient algorithm or optimization I likely to know what kind of results I’m looking for at some stage before creating the relevant code. In such cases tests help clarify what exactly the mysterious code needs to do so in a few hours to weeks later when inspiration hits you haven’t forgotten any relevant details. I might have gone in a wildly different direction, but as long as I consider why each test was made before deleting it the process of drilling down into the details has value.
I don't want to insult you, but I had to re-program myself in order to accept TDD and newer processes and there are a lot of systems out there that weren't written with testability in mind and are very difficult to deal with as a result. You are describing a prototype-until-you-reach-done type of approach, which is how we ended up with so much untestable code. My take is that you do a PoC, then throw it out and write the real application. "Build one to throw away" as Brooks said back in 1975.
I get where you're coming from, because I'm about a decade behind you, but resisting change is not a good look. I feel the same way about all this vibe coding and junk--don't really think it's a good idea, but there it is. Get used to being wrong about everything.
