Hi, Any responses to http://blog.caboo.se/articles/2008/11/4/we-ve-stopped-using-rspec ? How much of this is due to legitimate bugs/problems versus unfortunate circumstances? Feels kind of worrying that they haven''t been able to make it work for them. Cheers, -Tom
On Tue, Nov 4, 2008 at 6:39 AM, Tom Stuart <tom at experthuman.com> wrote:> Hi, >> Any responses to > http://blog.caboo.se/articles/2008/11/4/we-ve-stopped-using-rspec ? How much > of this is due to legitimate bugs/problems versus unfortunate circumstances? > Feels kind of worrying that they haven''t been able to make it work for them.<sarcasm>Oh my, the end of world is near!</sarcasm> The gem dependency is a real problem. Coming from the Windows world where we have to deal with DLL inter-dependency and loading issues, we are quite familiar with these issues (not having the gem/library in the server, loading it break other tasks, etc). What is missing from the config.gem concept is the possibility to specify the context in which these gems get loaded. Why you need RSpec in production? why is that being loaded? Even if you define rspec and rspec gems as your application dependencies, they shouldn''t be forced on *every* environment, which is the root of these issues. Other issues like specs not being executed I can agree on that, I found sometimes some before(:each) do not run, and sometimes they do... when tried to track that down, the problem disappeared.>From that I have plenty of stories, but any application or tool of thesize of RSpec have these issues. Take for example Test::Unit... is a 3K lines of code beast. mini-unit from Ryan Davis is around 600 lines and do the same stuff, much more faster, and besides the war at ruby-core about it, I don''t hear anyone ranting about the beast it is. So: the defacto vs. the newcomer. The full of classes and unpronounceable methods names vs. the descriptive ones. Pick your framework. -- Luis Lavena AREA 17 - Human beings, who are almost unique in having the ability to learn from the experience of others, are also remarkable for their apparent disinclination to do so. Douglas Adams
On Tue, Nov 4, 2008 at 10:39 AM, Tom Stuart <tom at experthuman.com> wrote:> Hi, > > Any responses to > http://blog.caboo.se/articles/2008/11/4/we-ve-stopped-using-rspec ? How much > of this is due to legitimate bugs/problems versus unfortunate circumstances? > Feels kind of worrying that they haven''t been able to make it work for them. >I wish people would seek out the developers (mailing list, bug tracker) before they go out and whine. See my comment in the blog post. Aslak> Cheers, > -Tom > _______________________________________________ > rspec-users mailing list > rspec-users at rubyforge.org > http://rubyforge.org/mailman/listinfo/rspec-users >
On 4 Nov 2008, at 13:25, aslak hellesoy wrote:> I wish people would seek out the developers (mailing list, bug > tracker) before they go out and whine. See my comment in the blog > post.RSpec seems to be a victim of "when I do BDD wrong, RSpec makes my tests fragile/confusing/verbose, so I''ll use something else and then I must be doing BDD right". There''s a BarCamp in my area soon[1], which will have quite a lot of Rubyists (not that that''s essential). Maybe there''d be some merit in offering a "How to diagnose BDD problems from spec problems" session? If that sounds like something worth doing let me know. Not that anyone here would attend (apart from Rahoul, maybe, he''s the only person I know here that is local to me), but I could gather ideas, and post the slides back later. Ashley [1] http://barcampsheffield.net/ -- http://www.patchspace.co.uk/ http://aviewfromafar.net/
> Subject: [rspec-users] Caboosers drop RSpecThe subject is wrong too; Caboosers didn''t drop RSpec. Two people from caboose dropped RSpec. Most of the caboosers I know are still using RSpec.> Any responses to http://blog.caboo.se/articles/2008/11/4/we-ve-stopped-using-rspec > ? How much of this is due to legitimate bugs/problems versus > unfortunate circumstances? Feels kind of worrying that they haven''t > been able to make it work for them.Big difference between "haven''t been able to" and "wouldn''t learn the tools". Ashley''s post below sums it up best. This is a problem that''s seen regularly when working with new ideas. How many times have you seen Agile blamed when a project fails due to poor management? I personally see this all the time. A poor craftsman blames his tools. I don''t get upset when people stop using RSpec, but I do get rather upset when people blame it because they mis-used it. The caboose post just seems to justify this kind of behaviour. Notice the first comment, which says: From Patrick Reagan: "We liked the BDD-style syntax and context, but found that it gave a false sense of security when it came to doing functional testing because the views were completely separated from the controllers under test." Patrick completely misses the point. He had bad examples (which are worse than no examples at all) and blames RSpec because he doesn''t understand BDD. This isn''t just BDD, decoupling is one of the benefits realized by the original TDD folks, and he''s saying "No, I want my separate objects to be coupled tightly because it''s less work." The tight coupling is actually what gives the false sense of security. -Steven
On Tue, Nov 4, 2008 at 9:37 AM, Steven Baker <steven at stevenrbaker.com> wrote:>> >> Subject: [rspec-users] Caboosers drop RSpec > > The subject is wrong too; Caboosers didn''t drop RSpec. Two people from caboose dropped RSpec. Most of the caboosers I know are still using RSpec. > >> Any responses to http://blog.caboo.se/articles/2008/11/4/we-ve-stopped-using-rspec ? How much of this is due to legitimate bugs/problems versus unfortunate circumstances? Feels kind of worrying that they haven''t been able to make it work for them. > > Big difference between "haven''t been able to" and "wouldn''t learn the tools". Ashley''s post below sums it up best. This is a problem that''s seen regularly when working with new ideas. How many times have you seen Agile blamed when a project fails due to poor management? I personally see this all the time. > > A poor craftsman blames his tools. > > I don''t get upset when people stop using RSpec, but I do get rather upset when people blame it because they mis-used it. The caboose post just seems to justify this kind of behaviour. Notice the first comment, which says: > > From Patrick Reagan: "We liked the BDD-style syntax and context, but found that it gave a false sense of security when it came to doing functional testing because the views were completely separated from the controllers under test." > > Patrick completely misses the point. He had bad examples (which are worse than no examples at all) and blames RSpec because he doesn''t understand BDD. This isn''t just BDD, decoupling is one of the benefits realized by the original TDD folks, and he''s saying "No, I want my separate objects to be coupled tightly because it''s less work." The tight coupling is actually what gives the false sense of security. > > -StevenI agree with your thoughts and sentiments Steven. -- Zach Dennis http://www.continuousthinking.com http://www.mutuallyhuman.com
On Tue, Nov 4, 2008 at 8:25 AM, aslak hellesoy <aslak.hellesoy at gmail.com> wrote:> On Tue, Nov 4, 2008 at 10:39 AM, Tom Stuart <tom at experthuman.com> wrote: >> Hi, >> >> Any responses to >> http://blog.caboo.se/articles/2008/11/4/we-ve-stopped-using-rspec ? How much >> of this is due to legitimate bugs/problems versus unfortunate circumstances? >> Feels kind of worrying that they haven''t been able to make it work for them. >> > > I wish people would seek out the developers (mailing list, bug > tracker) before they go out and whine. See my comment in the blog > post. >I completely agree. -- Zach Dennis http://www.continuousthinking.com http://www.mutuallyhuman.com
On 4 Nov 2008, at 14:37, Steven Baker wrote:> The subject is wrong too; Caboosers didn''t drop RSpec. Two people > from caboose dropped RSpec. Most of the caboosers I know are still > using RSpec.Sadly this one has legs and is running wild: http://www.rubyflow.com/items/1131 Never let the facts get it the way of a good headline? Ashley -- http://www.patchspace.co.uk/ http://aviewfromafar.net/
On 4 Nov 2008, at 15:13, Ashley Moran wrote:> Never let the facts get it the way of a good headline?in even -- http://www.patchspace.co.uk/ http://aviewfromafar.net/
>> Never let the facts get it the way of a good headline?This is typical of rubyflow. I wouldn''t worry about it too much. It was only a matter of time before the unfortunate political climate of the Rails community started bleeding into our party. Please don''t let this get in the way of learning and making use of good practices, people. -Steven
On Tue, Nov 4, 2008 at 4:20 PM, Steven Baker <steven at stevenrbaker.com> wrote:>>> Never let the facts get it the way of a good headline? > > This is typical of rubyflow. I wouldn''t worry about it too much. > > It was only a matter of time before the unfortunate political climate > of the Rails community started bleeding into our party. > > Please don''t let this get in the way of learning and making use of > good practices, people. >exactly. DNFTT kthxbye> -Steven > _______________________________________________ > rspec-users mailing list > rspec-users at rubyforge.org > http://rubyforge.org/mailman/listinfo/rspec-users >
> A poor craftsman blames his tools. >And the poor toolmaker blames the craftsman for being too stupid to understand how to use his tools. You say these guys should have come over and posted to this mailing-list or submitted bugs. But when I read the posts here, most of the time, when someone has a problem he gets pointed to the unfriendly documentation pages or worse, the very thin docs available at github. That doesn''t really motivate people to share their experiences with RSpec, and when they do, rspec supporters treat them as "whiners". -- Posted via http://www.ruby-forum.com/.
On Tue, Nov 4, 2008 at 12:32 PM, Fernando Perez <lists at ruby-forum.com> wrote:>> A poor craftsman blames his tools. >> > And the poor toolmaker blames the craftsman for being too stupid to > understand how to use his tools. > > You say these guys should have come over and posted to this mailing-list > or submitted bugs. But when I read the posts here, most of the time, > when someone has a problem he gets pointed to the unfriendly > documentation pages or worse, the very thin docs available at github. >Oh, your statement is wrong. There are plenty of threads in this list, and also rspec-devel that span across 20 or 30 messages to help other users solve RSpec issues or deal with BDD concepts. Pat, Ashley, David and Aslak give quite share of their time answering those emails, do a search and you will find out.> That doesn''t really motivate people to share their experiences with > RSpec, and when they do, rspec supporters treat them as "whiners".A whiner can recognize other whiners, I love to whine about things (and rant about them too), but I first came to the list, ask, and when noone answers, *then* I whine. Given a problem I have with RSpec And I post to the mailing list When noone answer my post And has been N days since I posted Then I start whining in my blog about it -- Luis Lavena AREA 17 - Human beings, who are almost unique in having the ability to learn from the experience of others, are also remarkable for their apparent disinclination to do so. Douglas Adams
On 2008-11-04, at 10:32, Fernando Perez wrote:> You say these guys should have come over and posted to this mailing- > list > or submitted bugs. But when I read the posts here, most of the time, > when someone has a problem he gets pointed to the unfriendly > documentation pages or worse, the very thin docs available at github.Hey there Fernando. I read about 80% of the emails on this ML, and find that most people are incredibly helpful, and devote a lot of their time to answering other peoples'' questions and problems. Occasionally a question will be answered concisely with a URL, but that''s usually when the question has been answered several times already, and the answer is explained well at the given URL. I couldn''t be happier with the suggestions, feedback and help that I''ve received on this ML. You should check out some of the longer threads to see how dedicated the people here are to helping others. Cheers, Nick
On Tue, Nov 4, 2008 at 9:55 AM, Luis Lavena <luislavena at gmail.com> wrote:> On Tue, Nov 4, 2008 at 12:32 PM, Fernando Perez <lists at ruby-forum.com> wrote: >> >> But when I read the posts here, most of the time, >> when someone has a problem he gets pointed to the unfriendly >> documentation pages or worse, the very thin docs available at github. > > Oh, your statement is wrong.Not all of it. The list is pretty helpful, sure, but the documentation _could_ stand for a lot of improvement. I find it very opaque, too, especially from a "Getting Started" perspective. There are posts and slideshows scattered all over the blogosphere, but finding them isn''t straightforward. I know there''s a book coming, but it ain''t here yet. And the Peepcode videos are good (they''re how I learned) but to watch all of the RSpec ones is over four hours. Also nearly forty bucks or an annual subscription. It''s something I''ve been poking at a bit, though haven''t had the time yet to bring things together. So I identify myself as part of the problem too. I could communicate what little _I_ know about RSpec... But I haven''t yet.> Pat, Ashley, David and Aslak give quite share of their time answering > those emails, do a search and you will find out.That''s not a replacement for good documentation. You have to have a certain grounding before you can even figure out where to go and what questions to ask -- and I don''t feel the most visible resources for that grounding are as good as they could be. -- Have Fun, Steve Eley (sfeley at gmail.com) ESCAPE POD - The Science Fiction Podcast Magazine http://www.escapepod.org
Matt Wynne
2008-Nov-04 16:20 UTC
[rspec-users] Better RSpec newbie documentation (was: Caboosers drop RSpec)
On 4 Nov 2008, at 16:09, Stephen Eley wrote:>> Pat, Ashley, David and Aslak give quite share of their time answering >> those emails, do a search and you will find out. > > That''s not a replacement for good documentation. You have to have a > certain grounding before you can even figure out where to go and what > questions to ask -- and I don''t feel the most visible resources for > that grounding are as good as they could be.This is a point I''ve made before (and David has rightly pointed me at the source of the rspec.info website), but I''m now so immersed in RSpec myself I would find it hard to see the gaps in the documentation, I think. Plus I''m lazy, and, y''know, busy at work. I almost wonder whether it would be worth ripping up the rspec.info site and pointing everyone at the github wiki, then putting some real effort into making that as good as it can be. Just a thought. cheers, Matt
On Tue, Nov 4, 2008 at 1:09 PM, Stephen Eley <sfeley at gmail.com> wrote:> On Tue, Nov 4, 2008 at 9:55 AM, Luis Lavena <luislavena at gmail.com> wrote: >> On Tue, Nov 4, 2008 at 12:32 PM, Fernando Perez <lists at ruby-forum.com> wrote: >>> >>> But when I read the posts here, most of the time, >>> when someone has a problem he gets pointed to the unfriendly >>> documentation pages or worse, the very thin docs available at github. >> >> Oh, your statement is wrong. > > Not all of it. The list is pretty helpful, sure, but the > documentation _could_ stand for a lot of improvement. I find it very > opaque, too, especially from a "Getting Started" perspective. There > are posts and slideshows scattered all over the blogosphere, but > finding them isn''t straightforward. I know there''s a book coming, but > it ain''t here yet. And the Peepcode videos are good (they''re how I > learned) but to watch all of the RSpec ones is over four hours. Also > nearly forty bucks or an annual subscription.Neither Rails was the one with best documentation (which btw I wonder what happened with the caboose documentation project they collected 12K, anyway). I don''t see any "tutorial" on internet for starting with XP, or either Scrum, or anything like that... took them years to evolve and be able to produce a book. Until then, you have mailing lists and blog posts to share the knowledge.> It''s something I''ve been poking at a bit, though haven''t had the time > yet to bring things together. So I identify myself as part of the > problem too. I could communicate what little _I_ know about RSpec... > But I haven''t yet. >Welcome aboard, we are share the guilty part.> >> Pat, Ashley, David and Aslak give quite share of their time answering >> those emails, do a search and you will find out. > > That''s not a replacement for good documentation. You have to have a > certain grounding before you can even figure out where to go and what > questions to ask -- and I don''t feel the most visible resources for > that grounding are as good as they could be. >And what ranting and whining provides? -- Luis Lavena AREA 17 - Human beings, who are almost unique in having the ability to learn from the experience of others, are also remarkable for their apparent disinclination to do so. Douglas Adams
Bart Zonneveld
2008-Nov-04 16:45 UTC
[rspec-users] Better RSpec newbie documentation (was: Caboosers drop RSpec)
On 4-nov-2008, at 17:20, Matt Wynne wrote:> On 4 Nov 2008, at 16:09, Stephen Eley wrote: >>> Pat, Ashley, David and Aslak give quite share of their time >>> answering >>> those emails, do a search and you will find out. >> >> That''s not a replacement for good documentation. You have to have a >> certain grounding before you can even figure out where to go and what >> questions to ask -- and I don''t feel the most visible resources for >> that grounding are as good as they could be. > > This is a point I''ve made before (and David has rightly pointed me > at the source of the rspec.info website), but I''m now so immersed > in RSpec myself I would find it hard to see the gaps in the > documentation, I think. Plus I''m lazy, and, y''know, busy at work. > > I almost wonder whether it would be worth ripping up the rspec.info > site and pointing everyone at the github wiki, then putting some > real effort into making that as good as it can be.That would be a good idea. No more rspec.info and rspec.rubyforge.net, but just github and The Book. The Book would be nice.. Already have an empty slot reserved on my bookshelf ;) cheers, bartz
On Nov 4, 2008, at 10:24 AM, Luis Lavena wrote:> Neither Rails was the one with best documentation (which btw I wonder > what happened with the caboose documentation project they collected > 12K, anyway).Tangential to this discussion, but anyhow: some of that money is going into the Rails Guides hackfest right now. Rails docs can always use improvement (as can RSpec''s - and I say that as a committed RSpec user who is still confused too much of the time), but we''re making progress, I think.
Zach Dennis
2008-Nov-04 16:47 UTC
[rspec-users] Better RSpec newbie documentation (was: Caboosers drop RSpec)
On Tue, Nov 4, 2008 at 11:45 AM, Bart Zonneveld <zuperinfinite at gmail.com> wrote:> > On 4-nov-2008, at 17:20, Matt Wynne wrote: > >> On 4 Nov 2008, at 16:09, Stephen Eley wrote: >>>> >>>> Pat, Ashley, David and Aslak give quite share of their time answering >>>> those emails, do a search and you will find out. >>> >>> That''s not a replacement for good documentation. You have to have a >>> certain grounding before you can even figure out where to go and what >>> questions to ask -- and I don''t feel the most visible resources for >>> that grounding are as good as they could be. >> >> This is a point I''ve made before (and David has rightly pointed me at the >> source of the rspec.info website), but I''m now so immersed in RSpec myself I >> would find it hard to see the gaps in the documentation, I think. Plus I''m >> lazy, and, y''know, busy at work. >> >> I almost wonder whether it would be worth ripping up the rspec.info site >> and pointing everyone at the github wiki, then putting some real effort into >> making that as good as it can be. > > That would be a good idea. No more rspec.info and rspec.rubyforge.net, but > just github and The Book. The Book would be nice.. Already have an empty > slot reserved on my bookshelf ;) >Your real bookshelf, or your Shelfari one? :) http://www.shelfari.com/ -- Zach Dennis http://www.continuousthinking.com http://www.mutuallyhuman.com
On Nov 4, 5:25?am, "aslak hellesoy" <aslak.helle... at gmail.com> wrote:> On Tue, Nov 4, 2008 at 10:39 AM, Tom Stuart <t... at experthuman.com> wrote: > > Hi, > > > Any responses to > >http://blog.caboo.se/articles/2008/11/4/we-ve-stopped-using-rspec? How much > > of this is due to legitimate bugs/problems versus unfortunate circumstances? > > Feels kind of worrying that they haven''t been able to make it work for them. > > I wish people would seek out the developers (mailing list, bug > tracker) before they go out and whine. See my comment in the blog > post. >Well, I didn''t think we were whining. I''ve been using rSpec since the early days, have contributed code and bug reports back (our team has built plugins around rspec too). We have more than 30 active projects in production built with rSpec.. tens (hundreds?) of thousands of lines of test code.. it''s been the best choice for us, so far, and obviously I''m not planning on throwing that out. It''s really not a case of "waah, waah, rspec sucks", even if you want to hear it that way. However, in my opinion the upgrade path should not be difficult, and the ability to have development tools (rspec) not checked into the code base for production deployment (config.gems in test.rb) is important to me. So when we upgraded and versions started leaking between apps and specs start failing mysteriously for some developers and not others, we started casting about for something simpler and/or better. I don''t want to be fighting my tools, I want them to be working with me.. I don''t want to start getting weird failures from an upgrade. It might well be bugs in Rails not rSpec, but if the only thing that changed was rSpec, well, you see my problem. In my mind rspec has a long history of breaking things between versions. My blog post was an honest attempt at finding out what the wider community is using -- why, how -- for their testing needs. I''m not going to find that on the rspec-users mailing list. And, yes, it is obvious that many of the commenters don''t understand how to use rSpec. Courtenay
On Tue, Nov 4, 2008 at 1:47 PM, Mike Gunderloy <MikeG1 at larkfarm.com> wrote:> On Nov 4, 2008, at 10:24 AM, Luis Lavena wrote: > >> Neither Rails was the one with best documentation (which btw I wonder >> what happened with the caboose documentation project they collected >> 12K, anyway). > > Tangential to this discussion, but anyhow: some of that money is going into > the Rails Guides hackfest right now. Rails docs can always use improvement > (as can RSpec''s - and I say that as a committed RSpec user who is still > confused too much of the time), but we''re making progress, I think. >Actually I didn''t know about it, sometimes lot of that stuff get lost between links. We are all still confused with RSpec, is hard when you need to jump from Test::Unit, NUnit and other testing frameworks back and forth (at least for me). What about something like the merb book? I know David cannot participate on it, but others can and we should bring the basic and advance techniques from blog posts and the mailing list to that document. -- Luis Lavena AREA 17 - Human beings, who are almost unique in having the ability to learn from the experience of others, are also remarkable for their apparent disinclination to do so. Douglas Adams
On 4 Nov 2008, at 17:32, court3nay wrote:> upgrade. It might well be bugs in Rails not rSpec, but if the only > thing that changed was rSpec, well, you see my problem. In my mind > rspec has a long history of breaking things between versions.If this is a common complaint, do we maybe need some better *acceptance tests* for rspec - some cucumber scripts which cover use cases like upgrades? How possible would that be to achieve? cheers, Matt
Fernando Perez <lists at ruby-forum.com> writes:>> A poor craftsman blames his tools. >> > And the poor toolmaker blames the craftsman for being too stupid to > understand how to use his tools. > > You say these guys should have come over and posted to this mailing-list > or submitted bugs. But when I read the posts here, most of the time, > when someone has a problem he gets pointed to the unfriendly > documentation pages or worse, the very thin docs available at github. > > That doesn''t really motivate people to share their experiences with > RSpec, and when they do, rspec supporters treat them as "whiners".hrm...I''m not going to argue with your experience, but I will say that mine has shown the complete opposite. The RSpec list is a damn good one in my opinion, thanks to people like David, Aslak, Ben, Scott, Ashley, Matt, Joseph...and those are just a few off the top of my head. We''ve got a good little community here, and I''m proud to be a part of it. It''s unfortunate that others have a less enjoyable experience than I have - what can we do to fix that? As far as the linked article goes, well, we''re all trying to create great software. If something is keeping you from doing that, you either fix it or look somewhere else. And it''s important to recognize that either choice is okay - we all have limited amounts of time and energy. Pat
"Stephen Eley" <sfeley at gmail.com> writes:> The list is pretty helpful, sure, but the > documentation _could_ stand for a lot of improvement.Agree 100%. Got a git repo I can pull from? :) Pat
As a starter, can someone tell me if the specs defined in restful_authentication are clever? Can I learn from them? Because right now I find them overwhelming, complicated, over-testing, etc. Does anyone know of a good app with specs I could learn from? It always makes me laugh to think about all the good things people say about TDD, and if I take for instance Spree (a Ror ecommerce website), well the specs are almost not defined at all, whereas the code is present. -- Posted via http://www.ruby-forum.com/.
Ben Mabey
2008-Nov-04 20:01 UTC
[rspec-users] restful_auth and good rspec examples (was: Caboosers drop RSpec)
Fernando Perez wrote:> As a starter, can someone tell me if the specs defined in > restful_authentication are clever? Can I learn from them? >Please don''t look at restful_auth as an example on how to use rspec examples and/or the story runner. The stories in particular are very brittle.> Because right now I find them overwhelming, complicated, over-testing, > etc. >Yeah, they go a little overboard with keeping the specs DRY which results IMO hard to follow specs. They also test private methods directly and some other things which are TDD smells.> Does anyone know of a good app with specs I could learn from? It always > makes me laugh to think about all the good things people say about TDD, > and if I take for instance Spree (a Ror ecommerce website), well the > specs are almost not defined at all, whereas the code is present. >Hmm.. I''ve heard good things about Radiant (the CMS) but I haven''t looked too closely myself. Also, the rspec code base itself is a very good place to learn from. I think there are plenty of open-source tools that use rspec that you can learn from but I can''t seem to think of many open-source rails apps with stellar examples. I have been thinking for a while that a worthwhile project would be to fork restful_auth and add some clearer code examples (specs) and Cucumber features. Since so many rails developers start out with restful auth it would be a good way to illustrate some good rspec guidelines. Alas, I have been think this for a while but have done nothing... It has been one of those things on my endless OSS TODO lists. -Ben
Jim Gay
2008-Nov-04 20:58 UTC
[rspec-users] restful_auth and good rspec examples (was: Caboosers drop RSpec)
On Nov 4, 2008, at 3:01 PM, Ben Mabey wrote:> Fernando Perez wrote: >> As a starter, can someone tell me if the specs defined in >> restful_authentication are clever? Can I learn from them? >> > > Please don''t look at restful_auth as an example on how to use rspec > examples and/or the story runner. The stories in particular are > very brittle. >> Because right now I find them overwhelming, complicated, over- >> testing, etc. >> > Yeah, they go a little overboard with keeping the specs DRY which > results IMO hard to follow specs. They also test private methods > directly and some other things which are TDD smells. >> Does anyone know of a good app with specs I could learn from? It >> always makes me laugh to think about all the good things people say >> about TDD, and if I take for instance Spree (a Ror ecommerce >> website), well the specs are almost not defined at all, whereas the >> code is present. >> > > Hmm.. I''ve heard good things about Radiant (the CMS) but I haven''t > looked too closely myself.Don''t look too closely. There''s lots of coverage, but the tests were converted from Test::Unit, so it wasn''t done in traditional BDD, but we''re moving to clear up the behavior descriptions which are lackluster. They''ll be getting better. I have a branch where I''m trying to clear this up, but I''ve not worked on it in weeks (and it lags behind edge as a result) http://github.com/saturnflyer/radiant/tree/spec Perhaps this''ll be the impetus to get it going again.> Also, the rspec code base itself is a very good place to learn > from. I think there are plenty of open-source tools that use rspec > that you can learn from but I can''t seem to think of many open- > source rails apps with stellar examples. > > I have been thinking for a while that a worthwhile project would be > to fork restful_auth and add some clearer code examples (specs) and > Cucumber features. Since so many rails developers start out with > restful auth it would be a good way to illustrate some good rspec > guidelines. Alas, I have been think this for a while but have done > nothing... It has been one of those things on my endless OSS TODO > lists. > > -Ben
Fernando Perez
2008-Nov-04 21:05 UTC
[rspec-users] restful_auth and good rspec examples (was: Caboosers drop RSpec)
Thank you Ben, my doubts about restful_auth specs have been confirmed. I think having a good solid Rails app, with well written specs to learn from is what prevents its adoption. I myself have got pissed a thousand times not knowing how to write a spec for a very simple piece of code. So I simply write code and don''t care about testing it as I don''t know how to test it. I would have one piece of advice to give: please remove rcov. This thing entices people to write shit loads of useless specs. 100% code coverage of poorly written specs doesn''t prevent bugs nor does it guaranty secure code, so please trash it. I would like to know: does anyone in this mailing-list actually never ever writes a single line of code before having written its spec(s)? In other words: do you fully comply to TDD or do you sometimes break the rules? -- Posted via http://www.ruby-forum.com/.
Fernando Perez <lists at ruby-forum.com> writes:> As a starter, can someone tell me if the specs defined in > restful_authentication are clever? Can I learn from them? > > Because right now I find them overwhelming, complicated, over-testing, > etc.I don''t even use restful_auth, precisely because I thought the specs sucked. I remember checking it out, running the specs and stories and there were like 400 specs and 60 stories or something. It was like wtf isn''t this thing just doing authentication? I''ve been working on giternal [1] a bit lately, which has specs and cucumber features. It''s not the greatest thing in the world, but it''s a lot more accessible than restful_auth I think. It''s also been pretty interesting to me, sometimes if I''m having trouble writing a story, I try a lower-level example and it''s trivial, and vice-versa. Pat
Matt Wynne
2008-Nov-04 21:23 UTC
[rspec-users] restful_auth and good rspec examples (was: Caboosers drop RSpec)
On 4 Nov 2008, at 21:05, Fernando Perez wrote:> I would like to know: does anyone in this mailing-list actually never > ever writes a single line of code before having written its spec(s)? > In > other words: do you fully comply to TDD or do you sometimes break the > rules?As a friend of mine said recently, "you have to be dogmatic for a while to learn when it''s OK to be pragmatic". But that''s just his opinion: http://www.nabble.com/Working-outside-in-with-Cucumber-and-RSpec-td20162633.html
Pat Maddox wrote:> Fernando Perez <lists at ruby-forum.com> writes: > > >> As a starter, can someone tell me if the specs defined in >> restful_authentication are clever? Can I learn from them? >> >> Because right now I find them overwhelming, complicated, over-testing, >> etc. >> > > I don''t even use restful_auth, precisely because I thought the specs > sucked. I remember checking it out, running the specs and stories and > there were like 400 specs and 60 stories or something. It was like wtf > isn''t this thing just doing authentication? > > I''ve been working on giternal [1] a bit lately, which has specs and > cucumber features. It''s not the greatest thing in the world, but it''s a > lot more accessible than restful_auth I think. It''s also been pretty > interesting to me, sometimes if I''m having trouble writing a story, I > try a lower-level example and it''s trivial, and vice-versa. > > Pat > _______________________________________________ > rspec-users mailing list > rspec-users at rubyforge.org > http://rubyforge.org/mailman/listinfo/rspec-users >I believe Pat meant to add this reference at the bottom of his email: :) [1] http://github.com/pat-maddox/giternal/tree/master
Ben Mabey <ben at benmabey.com> writes:> Pat Maddox wrote: >> Fernando Perez <lists at ruby-forum.com> writes: >> >> >>> As a starter, can someone tell me if the specs defined in >>> restful_authentication are clever? Can I learn from them? >>> >>> Because right now I find them overwhelming, complicated, >>> over-testing, etc. >>> >> >> I don''t even use restful_auth, precisely because I thought the specs >> sucked. I remember checking it out, running the specs and stories and >> there were like 400 specs and 60 stories or something. It was like wtf >> isn''t this thing just doing authentication? >> >> I''ve been working on giternal [1] a bit lately, which has specs and >> cucumber features. It''s not the greatest thing in the world, but it''s a >> lot more accessible than restful_auth I think. It''s also been pretty >> interesting to me, sometimes if I''m having trouble writing a story, I >> try a lower-level example and it''s trivial, and vice-versa. >> >> Pat >> _______________________________________________ >> rspec-users mailing list >> rspec-users at rubyforge.org >> http://rubyforge.org/mailman/listinfo/rspec-users >> > I believe Pat meant to add this reference at the bottom of his email: :) > > [1] http://github.com/pat-maddox/giternal/tree/master > > _______________________________________________ > rspec-users mailing list > rspec-users at rubyforge.org > http://rubyforge.org/mailman/listinfo/rspec-usersSee what a great community we have!!
On Nov 5, 1:55?am, "Luis Lavena" <luislav... at gmail.com> wrote:> Given a problem I have with RSpec > And I post to the mailing list > When noone answer my post > And has been N days since I posted > Then I start whining in my blog about itI''m still learning the ways of cucumber, though I think this could/ should be: Given a problem I have with RSpec When I post to the RSpec mailing list And noone answers my post after 10 days Then I start whining in my blog about RSpec :P
On Nov 04, 2008, at 11:09 pm, Dr Nic wrote:> On Nov 5, 1:55 am, "Luis Lavena" <luislav... at gmail.com> wrote: >> Given a problem I have with RSpec >> And I post to the mailing list >> When noone answer my post >> And has been N days since I posted >> Then I start whining in my blog about it > > I''m still learning the ways of cucumber, though I think this could/ > should be: > > Given a problem I have with RSpec > When I post to the RSpec mailing list > And noone answers my post after 10 days > Then I start whining in my blog about RSpecMeh, you are both amateurs at whine-driven development. Please observe: Given a problem I have with RSpec When I post to the RSpec mailing list And noone answers my post after 10 days Then I start whining in my blog about RSpec More Examples: | days since post | whining medium | | 0.1 | Twitter | | 0.2 | Facebook | | 2 | Ruby Flow | | 5 | Ruby Forum | | 20 | Slashdot | | 50 | YouTube | To think of Aslak''s hard work going to waste... (Bonus points for anyone who noticed that "YouTube" should be in the "slow-running" feature set and that "Slashdot" must be run with grammar checking disabled.) -- http://www.patchspace.co.uk/ http://aviewfromafar.net/
Did this person the mailing list first? On 4-Nov-08, at 7:01 PM, Ashley Moran wrote:> > On Nov 04, 2008, at 11:09 pm, Dr Nic wrote: > >> On Nov 5, 1:55 am, "Luis Lavena" <luislav... at gmail.com> wrote: >>> Given a problem I have with RSpec >>> And I post to the mailing list >>> When noone answer my post >>> And has been N days since I posted >>> Then I start whining in my blog about it >> >> I''m still learning the ways of cucumber, though I think this could/ >> should be: >> >> Given a problem I have with RSpec >> When I post to the RSpec mailing list >> And noone answers my post after 10 days >> Then I start whining in my blog about RSpec > > > Meh, you are both amateurs at whine-driven development. Please > observe: > > Given a problem I have with RSpec > When I post to the RSpec mailing list > And noone answers my post after 10 days > Then I start whining in my blog about RSpec > > More Examples: > | days since post | whining medium | > | 0.1 | Twitter | > | 0.2 | Facebook | > | 2 | Ruby Flow | > | 5 | Ruby Forum | > | 20 | Slashdot | > | 50 | YouTube | > > To think of Aslak''s hard work going to waste... > > (Bonus points for anyone who noticed that "YouTube" should be in the > "slow-running" feature set and that "Slashdot" must be run with > grammar checking disabled.) > > -- > http://www.patchspace.co.uk/ > http://aviewfromafar.net/ > > _______________________________________________ > rspec-users mailing list > rspec-users at rubyforge.org > http://rubyforge.org/mailman/listinfo/rspec-users
On Wed, Nov 5, 2008 at 1:01 AM, Ashley Moran <ashley.moran at patchspace.co.uk> wrote:> > On Nov 04, 2008, at 11:09 pm, Dr Nic wrote: > >> On Nov 5, 1:55 am, "Luis Lavena" <luislav... at gmail.com> wrote: >>> >>> Given a problem I have with RSpec >>> And I post to the mailing list >>> When noone answer my post >>> And has been N days since I posted >>> Then I start whining in my blog about it >> >> I''m still learning the ways of cucumber, though I think this could/ >> should be: >> >> Given a problem I have with RSpec >> When I post to the RSpec mailing list >> And noone answers my post after 10 days >> Then I start whining in my blog about RSpec > > > Meh, you are both amateurs at whine-driven development. Please observe: > > Given a problem I have with RSpec > When I post to the RSpec mailing list > And noone answers my post after 10 days > Then I start whining in my blog about RSpec > > More Examples: > | days since post | whining medium | > | 0.1 | Twitter | > | 0.2 | Facebook | > | 2 | Ruby Flow | > | 5 | Ruby Forum | > | 20 | Slashdot | > | 50 | YouTube | > > To think of Aslak''s hard work going to waste... >Hahaha. That made me laugh out loud.> (Bonus points for anyone who noticed that "YouTube" should be in the > "slow-running" feature set and that "Slashdot" must be run with grammar > checking disabled.) > > -- > http://www.patchspace.co.uk/ > http://aviewfromafar.net/ > > _______________________________________________ > rspec-users mailing list > rspec-users at rubyforge.org > http://rubyforge.org/mailman/listinfo/rspec-users >
On Tue, Nov 4, 2008 at 8:09 PM, Dr Nic <drnic at mocra.com> wrote:> On Nov 5, 1:55 am, "Luis Lavena" <luislav... at gmail.com> wrote: >> Given a problem I have with RSpec >> And I post to the mailing list >> When noone answer my post >> And has been N days since I posted >> Then I start whining in my blog about it > > I''m still learning the ways of cucumber, though I think this could/ > should be: > > Given a problem I have with RSpec > When I post to the RSpec mailing list > And noone answers my post after 10 days > Then I start whining in my blog about RSpec > > :POh, let''s put RSpec between quotes, so we can reuse the steps to whine about other projects too. Given a problem I have with ''Rails'' When I post to the ''Rails'' mailing list And noone answe my post after 2 days Then I start whining in my blog about ''Rails'' ;-) Thanks Dr. Nic, your Scenarios from newgem inspired me to draw the lines for rake-compiler gem ;-) Regards -- Luis Lavena AREA 17 - Human beings, who are almost unique in having the ability to learn from the experience of others, are also remarkable for their apparent disinclination to do so. Douglas Adams
On 05/11/2008, at 01:37 , Steven Baker wrote:> Big difference between "haven''t been able to" and "wouldn''t learn > the tools". Ashley''s post below sums it up best. This is a problem > that''s seen regularly when working with new ideas. How many times > have you seen Agile blamed when a project fails due to poor > management? I personally see this all the time.Personally, the first question on my mind was why they weren''t using separate environments for each of their production applications. I''m learning Django at the moment, which is kinda like a Python-on- Rails wannabe. The most useful tool I''ve come across recently has been "virtualenv" which basically takes your system-installed environment, copies it (including the specific version of the Python interpreter) into a stand-alone environment, then sets the path for Python libraries appropriately. Then when you go messing with the environment (adding new third-party software) it only affects that specific virtual environment. A similar thing in the Mac OS X world of Ruby on Rails programming is Locomotive. I love Locomotive. I can''t understand why people who are serious about production environment stability would install multiple applications in the same environment. It''s not healthy. Alex
> I''m learning Django at the moment, which is kinda like a Python-on- > Rails wannabe.Just to clear things out. Django is absolutely not a Python-on-Rails wannabe. See Rubies and Snakes conference for disambiguation. -- Posted via http://www.ruby-forum.com/.
Alex Satrapa wrote:> I can''t understand why people who are serious about production > environment stability would install multiple applications in the same > environment. It''s not healthy.One very nice way to do this is to run each app with its own user, then have a ~/.gems directory. Then you can only install each app''s gems here. For example: For my_app_1: The app code is here: /home/my_app_1/rails/current And the gems are here: /home/my_app_1/.gems For my_app_2: The app code is here: /home/my_app_2/rails/current And the gems are here: /home/my_app_2/.gems Both users have ~/.gems in their gem load path. So user my_app_1 doesn''t see user my_app_2''s gems, and vice versa. This is how some shared hosts let users install their own gems without breaking anyone else''s apps. -- Posted via http://www.ruby-forum.com/.
On Wed, Nov 5, 2008 at 2:58 AM, Alex Satrapa <grail at goldweb.com.au> wrote:> On 05/11/2008, at 01:37 , Steven Baker wrote: > >> Big difference between "haven''t been able to" and "wouldn''t learn the >> tools". Ashley''s post below sums it up best. This is a problem that''s seen >> regularly when working with new ideas. How many times have you seen Agile >> blamed when a project fails due to poor management? I personally see this >> all the time. > > Personally, the first question on my mind was why they weren''t using > separate environments for each of their production applications. >Not sure if this is a python troll or not.. however, our biggest problem was the development environment, not production.
My 2 cents http://talklikeaduck.denhaven2.com/articles/2008/11/05/the-rspec-caboo-se-brouhaha -- Rick DeNatale My blog on Ruby http://talklikeaduck.denhaven2.com/ -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: <http://rubyforge.org/pipermail/rspec-users/attachments/20081105/a0f53f46/attachment.html>
On Wed, Nov 5, 2008 at 12:23 PM, Courtenay <court3nay at gmail.com> wrote:> > Not sure if this is a python troll or not.. however, our biggest > problem was the development environment, not production.I hosed my development environment once. I did pair programming with a VIM junkie, and foolishly let him install whatever he wanted on my laptop to embed MacVIM and make it telepathic, or something. When he was done I couldn''t find my usual shell vi again. (Yes, sometimes I use vi instead of Textmate to edit config files and such. But I don''t want it in a window with its own kitchen sink.) Then the next day I installed Ruby 1.9 from MacPorts and, in the process of making it the default, managed to delete the Ruby that came with OS X. Gems blew up everywhere, yadda yadda, and then I didn''t want it after all. Stupid. My point is that it did not take me days to recover from all this screwiness. I was using Time Machine. I booted from the Leopard DVD, said "Make it Wednesday again," and let it recopy my whole hard drive. Poof, problem never happened, and I didn''t lose any work because documents and projects were all on .Mac or Github. (Prior to Time Machine I used dirvish, and recovery would have been slightly more complex but the same principle applied.) You guys are famous programmers, so I know you must be disciplined about backups and version control. Why did they fail you? Is it RSpec''s fault? -- Have Fun, Steve Eley (sfeley at gmail.com) ESCAPE POD - The Science Fiction Podcast Magazine http://www.escapepod.org
On Wed, Nov 5, 2008 at 12:39 PM, Stephen Eley <sfeley at gmail.com> wrote:> > My point is that it did not take me days to recover from all this > screwiness. I was using Time Machine. I booted from the Leopard DVD, > said "Make it Wednesday again," and let it recopy my whole hard drive. >Time Machine is especially cool because it backs up hourly. My criterion has always been, if a meteor annihilates my computer, how long would it take to get back to work? No meteors yet, but better safe than sorry. ///ark -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: <http://rubyforge.org/pipermail/rspec-users/attachments/20081105/b8f3c3b7/attachment.html>
On Wed, Nov 5, 2008 at 4:11 PM, Mark Wilden <mark at mwilden.com> wrote:> > Time Machine is especially cool because it backs up hourly. > > My criterion has always been, if a meteor annihilates my computer, how long > would it take to get back to work? No meteors yet, but better safe than > sorry.It''s not sufficient for that scenario, however, because that meteor would probably take out your nearby external backup drive as well. My preference is full-drive local backups and then important documents on the Internet. I have a JungleDisk (virtual network drives on top of Amazon S3) workgroup account for my podcasting team. It has some problems with doing live work on it, but for storage or backup it''s easy and cheap. But this is getting off-topic. I just wanted to make the point that blaming an upgrade glitch, however whacked-out it might be, for cascading code fixes across all projects and losing a couple days of work was probably unnecessary. A good computer user should have the power to turn back time. I''m also unsure how moving from RSpec to three totally separate tools reduces the risk of such dependency glitches happening again. It wasn''t good that this happened, but RSpec isn''t the first and only gem ever to cause problems. -- Have Fun, Steve Eley (sfeley at gmail.com) ESCAPE POD - The Science Fiction Podcast Magazine http://www.escapepod.org
On Wed, Nov 5, 2008 at 1:32 PM, Stephen Eley <sfeley at gmail.com> wrote:> > It''s not sufficient for that scenario, however, because that meteor > would probably take out your nearby external backup drive as well.That''s a good point, which is why I didn''t boast about my 1 TB Time Capsule. :) I plan to setup an rsync to my Web site, RSN. ///ark -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: <http://rubyforge.org/pipermail/rspec-users/attachments/20081105/9628271e/attachment.html>
"Mark Wilden" <mark at mwilden.com> writes:> On Wed, Nov 5, 2008 at 12:39 PM, Stephen Eley <sfeley at gmail.com> wrote: > > My point is that it did not take me days to recover from all this > screwiness. I was using Time Machine. I booted from the Leopard DVD, > said "Make it Wednesday again," and let it recopy my whole hard drive. > > Time Machine is especially cool because it backs up hourly. > > My criterion has always been, if a meteor annihilates my computer, how long would it take to > get back to work? No meteors yet, but better safe than sorry.Chuck Norris protects my computer from meteors and all other catastrophes. I don''t need no stinkin'' time machine. Pat
On 6 Nov 2008, at 00:18, Pat Maddox wrote:> Chuck Norris protects my computer from meteors and all other > catastrophes. I don''t need no stinkin'' time machine.Chuck Norris can travel through time. Chuck Norris invented time.