A very simple loop to give constant feedback on tests v code. Stick it in a small tmux/screen pane for TDD goodness.

testloop.sh

#!/bin/bash

# Wait for project changes, run tests, report.

RED=1
GREEN=2
testcmd="make test"
exclude='^\.git|.*swp'

function report {
    tput bold

    out=`$testcmd 2>&1`
    if [ "$?" -eq "0" ] ; then
        tput setaf $GREEN
        echo "Tests passed... write more tests!"
    else
        tput setaf $RED
        echo "$out" | tail -n 2
    fi

    tput sgr0
}

function main {
    while inotifywait -r -e modify --exclude $exclude . &> /dev/null ; do
        echo `date +%H:%M` "- files changed, testing..."
        report
    done
}

main

Wrote this for use with Perl projects, probably needs tweaking for other stuff.

Would be nice to derive 'exclude' from .gitignore