Oct 4 JUG Meeting: Change Anything with Cucumber and ATDD

[bachdot]

Alright, so you’ve heard the TDD claim to fame. Your code (…. Your
functionality) is closely protected by an ever vigilant suite of tests
ready to stop bugs before they are even introduced. This sounds good,
eh?

While TDD and unit testing provide numerous advantages in addition to
protecting existing functionality, one shortcoming you may discover is
that the scope of the unit test is too small. Yeah, it tests how that
individual class works, but will it test the application as a whole?
Furthermore, will my unit test even be useful after a big change to
the class structure? Not likely.

Enter Acceptance Test Driven Development using Cucumber. Test the
whole application, nothing but the application, and only the
application. Allow yourself to be free to change big things and still
have absolute confidence that your application still performs.
Furthermore, doing ATDD with Cucumber allows your tests to be in
English (or Swedish if you like).

Whoa. Tests in English!? That sounds like a bad idea… You have to
see it to believe it. It’s DRY and it’s awesome. See you October
4th.