Rails - May 2012 - Beginning with BDD: Rspec or Cucumber? What is better documented?

Hey everybody

I''m sorry, I know that this question seems to arise every few moments,
but I
think in my case it''s a bit special (but doesn''t everybody?).

Well, I''m working with RoR on a private level since v1.0, and my
knowledge about both Ruby and Rails are on a basic level (but definitely
does exist), but I''m in no means near being an expert yet.

In june, I will start with my first tenure in a company which uses
Rails, so I''m on my way to become a pro user, and I''m really,
really
happy about that (byebye, PHP and Java!). It''s sort of a startup
company
which already is working on a small Rails app since some time, but until
now, testing has been neglected a bit. So I decided to become the person
responsible for our testing concept, but as I''m coming from cakePHP, I
only have experience in plain unit and functional testing using
SimpleTest, a quite basic testing framework for PHP. So now I want to
dig into more advanced techniques and frameworks for Rails, and
obviously there are quite a few of them, so I have to decide which one
to use and stick with.

I''ve come down to two very interesting frameworks: Rspec and Cucumber.
Both of them seem to be very world-proven and useful. But now I don''t
really know for which I should go for our project.

What I''d like to do, is to have a good book about a good BDD-framework,
which guides me through the learning process comprehensively, so I
become a pro-tester really quick. I found the following two interesting
books:

The RSpec Book: Behaviour Driven Development with RSpec, Cucumber, and
Friends
http://www.amazon.de/gp/product/1934356379/ref=s9_simh_gw_p14_d1_g14_i3?pf_rd_m=A3JWKAKR8XB7XF&pf_rd_s=center-2&pf_rd_r=1KW9ABVTJ32QSGHJWNM4&pf_rd_t=101&pf_rd_p=463375173&pf_rd_i=301128

The Cucumber Book: Behaviour-Driven Development for Testers and
Developers
http://www.amazon.de/The-Cucumber-Book-Behaviour-Driven-Development/dp/1934356808/ref=pd_sim_eb_4

I think I will go for Cucumber, because the book is very current (march
2012) compared to the Rspec book (december 2010). Also, the Cucumber
book seems to be more focused on only cucumber, whereas the Rspec book
more seems to be like an overview over different testing frameworks
(including Cucumber).

So what do you think? Am I on a good way? Or would you guys (who have a
lot more experience in testing and the current state of testing
frameworks and their corresponding literature) suggest to do something
else?

Thanks a lot for your time and your opinion!
Josh

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I think you should use cucumber and rspec together! If you want to do the out
side in terminology like in rspec book, cucumber will handle easily with the
integration''s tests! I used to use cucumber and rspec to do tests in my
application but in my new project we are using just rspec for all tests and
factory girl to work with factories! Rspec with selenium is a great deal to make
some integration tests! I think if you need to show some histories to you client
or maybe describe some behavior on your app in plain text you should use
cucumber but if it is not a requirement, be happy with rspec and selenium, or
maybe potergeist to handle with JavaScript without the browser pump in your
screen !

Hope it helps

Regards 

-- 
thiagocifani
Sent with Sparrow (http://www.sparrowmailapp.com/?sig)


On Tuesday, 22 de May de 2012 at 05:11, Joshua Muheim wrote:
> Hey everybody
> 
> I''m sorry, I know that this question seems to arise every few
moments,
> but I
> think in my case it''s a bit special (but doesn''t
everybody?).
> 
> Well, I''m working with RoR on a private level since v1.0, and my
> knowledge about both Ruby and Rails are on a basic level (but definitely
> does exist), but I''m in no means near being an expert yet.
> 
> In june, I will start with my first tenure in a company which uses
> Rails, so I''m on my way to become a pro user, and I''m
really, really
> happy about that (byebye, PHP and Java!). It''s sort of a startup
company
> which already is working on a small Rails app since some time, but until
> now, testing has been neglected a bit. So I decided to become the person
> responsible for our testing concept, but as I''m coming from
cakePHP, I
> only have experience in plain unit and functional testing using
> SimpleTest, a quite basic testing framework for PHP. So now I want to
> dig into more advanced techniques and frameworks for Rails, and
> obviously there are quite a few of them, so I have to decide which one
> to use and stick with.
> 
> I''ve come down to two very interesting frameworks: Rspec and
Cucumber.
> Both of them seem to be very world-proven and useful. But now I
don''t
> really know for which I should go for our project.
> 
> What I''d like to do, is to have a good book about a good
BDD-framework,
> which guides me through the learning process comprehensively, so I
> become a pro-tester really quick. I found the following two interesting
> books:
> 
> The RSpec Book: Behaviour Driven Development with RSpec, Cucumber, and
> Friends
>
http://www.amazon.de/gp/product/1934356379/ref=s9_simh_gw_p14_d1_g14_i3?pf_rd_m=A3JWKAKR8XB7XF&pf_rd_s=center-2&pf_rd_r=1KW9ABVTJ32QSGHJWNM4&pf_rd_t=101&pf_rd_p=463375173&pf_rd_i=301128
> 
> The Cucumber Book: Behaviour-Driven Development for Testers and
> Developers
>
http://www.amazon.de/The-Cucumber-Book-Behaviour-Driven-Development/dp/1934356808/ref=pd_sim_eb_4
> 
> I think I will go for Cucumber, because the book is very current (march
> 2012) compared to the Rspec book (december 2010). Also, the Cucumber
> book seems to be more focused on only cucumber, whereas the Rspec book
> more seems to be like an overview over different testing frameworks
> (including Cucumber).
> 
> So what do you think? Am I on a good way? Or would you guys (who have a
> lot more experience in testing and the current state of testing
> frameworks and their corresponding literature) suggest to do something
> else?
> 
> Thanks a lot for your time and your opinion!
> Josh
> 
> -- 
> Posted via http://www.ruby-forum.com/.
> 
> -- 
> You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups
"Ruby on Rails: Talk" group.
> To post to this group, send email to
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> For more options, visit this group at
http://groups.google.com/group/rubyonrails-talk?hl=en.
> 
> 

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Thank you for your opinion, thiagocifani.

This sounds interesting. But I fear a bit that it''s too much to dive 
into at one time if I don''t concentrate on one single framework. Do you
think different? As said before, I don''t really have an idea about 
anything yet, so maybe it truly IS a good idea to start with everything.

But then maybe the RSpec book would be the better option, although it''s
already 1.5years old?

http://www.amazon.de/The-RSpec-Book-Behaviour-Development/dp/1934356379

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Joshua Muheim wrote in post #1061798:
> This sounds interesting. But I fear a bit that it''s too much to
dive
> into at one time if I don''t concentrate on one single framework.
Do you
> think different? As said before, I don''t really have an idea about
> anything yet, so maybe it truly IS a good idea to start with everything.
The thing is that it''s not a matter of choosing between RSpec and 
Cucumber. They are two very different tools, designed to solve different 
problems in different ways.

It would be a little bit like choosing between a hammer and a screw 
driver. You might be able to force one tool to do the other one''s job, 
but it won''t be nearly as effective. If you want to drive a screw use a
screw driver, if you want to drive a nail use a hammer. If you want to 
write low level specs (unit tests) use RSpec if you want to write a 
user story (customer acceptance test) use Cucumber.

The two are designed to work together to cover all the different types 
of specs/stories you need to prove your application is performing to 
those specifications.

Choosing which one to learn first also depends on your situation. It''s 
not like one is more complicated to learn and understand than the other. 
It depends a lot on your own particular needs.

I personally find RSpec has met the majority of my needs, but my 
situation may be different than yours. For the apps I''ve written in 
Rails the customer/stake holder was me. I didn''t have a need to
describe
the application in high level user stories. I was more interested in the 
low level unit specs.
> But then maybe the RSpec book would be the better option, although
it''s
> already 1.5years old?
So, It''s not like RSpec is going to change in drastic ways from one
year
to the next. My recommendation would be to find the exact version of 
RSpec being used by the book and install that version. Learn the basics 
and get comfortable with the concepts. Once you get comfortable with 
that version, then go out and research the differences between that 
version and the latest release. The changes will not likely be 
overwhelming once you understand the basics.

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Thank you for this very useful reply, Robert.

I decided to go with the RSpec book now, because from its foreword I can 
tell that it''s not only about RSpec, but it''s also about
Cucumber (and
many other accompanying tools, too), so I''m quite confident I will get
a
good introduction in both tools and will know which one I want to use 
(or even both).

And you''re right about the date of the book - the basic ideas
don''t
happen to change that fast, and it won''t be too tricky to catch up with
the new features after I grasped the basic concepts.

Thanks again, I''m confident that I''m on a good way now!

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I''d recommend learning RSpec first, as Cucumber is an additional 
abstraction above.  Think of it this way:

RSpec: reads more like code, but you can see exactly which methods are 
being called, etc.
Cucumber: reads more like English, but you have to maintain a file to 
"translate" from the code

Cucumber is often used when interacting with clients who don''t
necessarily
know how to code, as they will be able to understand the plain language and 
can even help create some of the tests themselves.



On Wednesday, May 23, 2012 1:05:55 PM UTC-7, Ruby-Forum.com User
wrote:
>
> Thank you for this very useful reply, Robert. 
>
> I decided to go with the RSpec book now, because from its foreword I can 
> tell that it''s not only about RSpec, but it''s also about
Cucumber (and
> many other accompanying tools, too), so I''m quite confident I will
get a
> good introduction in both tools and will know which one I want to use 
> (or even both). 
>
> And you''re right about the date of the book - the basic ideas
don''t
> happen to change that fast, and it won''t be too tricky to catch up
with
> the new features after I grasped the basic concepts. 
>
> Thanks again, I''m confident that I''m on a good way now! 
>
> -- 
> Posted via http://www.ruby-forum.com/. 
>
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Hey guys.

I finally got "The RSpec book" and afte reading some pages
I''m really
confident it was the right choice. I already learned that Cucumber first 
was planned to be a part of RSpec, and so it still is an integral part 
of it. The book teaches how to use both of them and in which areas one 
should use the one or the other. This is exactly what I''ve been looking
for.

Thanks again for your replies. I''m enjoying diving into BDD! :)

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