Going from Test::Unit to TTD with rspec

rubyonrails-talk
1

Hi all,

I've been writing apps and using retrospectively written tests with Test::Unit.

I want to get into TTD with rspec but all of the resources I've found are either quite vague or out of date.

Can anyone point me to a good resource to get me started with TTD/rspec in a rails app?

Something with some nice examples maybe, and something that tells you how to actually run the tests would be great.

Thanks

Matt

2

Hi all,

I've been writing apps and using retrospectively written tests with Test::Unit.

I want to get into TTD with rspec but all of the resources I've found are either quite vague or out of date.

Can anyone point me to a good resource to get me started with TTD/rspec in a rails app?

Not exactly what you asked, but you do realise that you can do TDD with Test::Unit (or any testing framework really). It's a shift in mentality more than anything else. Some people like the language that rspec uses, others don't but that's slightly orthogonal to whether you're TDD'ing or not

Fred

3

Frederick Cheung wrote:

you do realise that you can do TDD with Test::Unit (or any testing framework really). It's a shift in mentality more than anything else.

+1 to that.

I love and use RSpec (I never _really_ learned Test::Unit). But if you already know Test::Unit then I'd recommend that you try TDD with Test::Unit. You can practice the workflow/mindset of writing a failing test, then coding to make it pass (and then refactoring) without having to learn new syntax at the same time.

To actually answer your question: I think the best place to learn RSpec is the peepcode screencasts: https://peepcode.com/products/rspec-basics

There are three of them. I couldn't say which is best since I don't know how much you know about RSpec, but if you can afford $27 then you should buy all three.

HTH

4

DyingToLearn wrote:

Frederick Cheung wrote:

you do realise that you can do TDD with Test::Unit (or any testing framework really). It's a shift in mentality more than anything else.

+1 to that.

I love and use RSpec (I never _really_ learned Test::Unit). But if you already know Test::Unit then I'd recommend that you try TDD with Test::Unit. You can practice the workflow/mindset of writing a failing test, then coding to make it pass (and then refactoring) without having to learn new syntax at the same time.

Thats a very good point both of you have made, I guess I got pulled in to the fact that most people like to use TTD with something other than Test::Unit, but you're both right, there doesn't seem to be any reason why I shouldn't start working like this.

I will have a look at the screencasts some time but for now I will give TTD and Test::Unit a shot :slight_smile:

Thanks for your input

Matt