rspec users - Feb 2008 - BDD and TDD (was "Newbie question with rspec on rails")

On Feb 4, 2008 1:20 AM, Pat Maddox <pergesu at gmail.com>
wrote:
> For some info on why BDD kicks TDD''s butt ...
Woah!

I find this deeply disturbing. I believe your heart is in the right
place here, so please don''t take this as a personal attack, but this
statement reflects a view that I see expressed quite often and I think
we need to set the record straight on a few things.

To be clear, what I''m about to express are my personal views and may
not align with those of Dan, Dave, Aslak and others who are driving
the BDD discussion.

This is not a contest between approaches.

BDD started off as a thought experiment: an attempt to find a better
way to *talk* about TDD, because some of us who felt like we *got* TDD
wanted to help those that we felt didn''t. The process (at the object
level) was (and remains) the same. We were just playing with words and
constructs to better evoke what we believed to be the essence of TDD:
driving out implementation with executable examples of the expected
behaviour.

Over time BDD has grown to include TDD (which is about the behaviour
of objects) and an approach to Customer Acceptance Testing (which is
about the behaviour of systems) called Acceptance Test Driven
Planning. It''s evolving into a full-stack agile process, so at this
point trying to compare TDD with BDD doesn''t make sense since the
former is part of the latter.

But even back when BDD was only about objects, it was still TDD at
it''s core. Not better than TDD. Not even different from TDD as
practiced by those who really understood it.

So while "TDD as intended" kicks "TDD the way many
do"''s butt, and
while BDD may help people to see the light, that light still belongs
to TDD.

FWIW,
David

David, I''ll be your
cha''Dich<http://www.klingon.org/database/rituals.html#anchor726815>
Some people still sware using TDD over BDD.



On Feb 4, 2008 10:51 AM, David Chelimsky <dchelimsky at gmail.com> wrote:
> On Feb 4, 2008 1:20 AM, Pat Maddox <pergesu at gmail.com> wrote:
> > For some info on why BDD kicks TDD''s butt ...
>
> Woah!
>
> I find this deeply disturbing. I believe your heart is in the right
> place here, so please don''t take this as a personal attack, but
this
> statement reflects a view that I see expressed quite often and I think
> we need to set the record straight on a few things.
>
> To be clear, what I''m about to express are my personal views and
may
> not align with those of Dan, Dave, Aslak and others who are driving
> the BDD discussion.
>
> This is not a contest between approaches.
>
> BDD started off as a thought experiment: an attempt to find a better
> way to *talk* about TDD, because some of us who felt like we *got* TDD
> wanted to help those that we felt didn''t. The process (at the
object
> level) was (and remains) the same. We were just playing with words and
> constructs to better evoke what we believed to be the essence of TDD:
> driving out implementation with executable examples of the expected
> behaviour.
>
> Over time BDD has grown to include TDD (which is about the behaviour
> of objects) and an approach to Customer Acceptance Testing (which is
> about the behaviour of systems) called Acceptance Test Driven
> Planning. It''s evolving into a full-stack agile process, so at
this
> point trying to compare TDD with BDD doesn''t make sense since the
> former is part of the latter.
>
> But even back when BDD was only about objects, it was still TDD at
> it''s core. Not better than TDD. Not even different from TDD as
> practiced by those who really understood it.
>
> So while "TDD as intended" kicks "TDD the way many
do"''s butt, and
> while BDD may help people to see the light, that light still belongs
> to TDD.
>
> FWIW,
> David
> _______________________________________________
> rspec-users mailing list
> rspec-users at rubyforge.org
> http://rubyforge.org/mailman/listinfo/rspec-users
>
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On Feb 4, 2008 7:51 AM, David Chelimsky <dchelimsky at gmail.com>
wrote:
> On Feb 4, 2008 1:20 AM, Pat Maddox <pergesu at gmail.com> wrote:
> > For some info on why BDD kicks TDD''s butt ...
>
> Woah!
>
> I find this deeply disturbing. I believe your heart is in the right
> place here, so please don''t take this as a personal attack, but
this
> statement reflects a view that I see expressed quite often and I think
> we need to set the record straight on a few things.
>
> To be clear, what I''m about to express are my personal views and
may
> not align with those of Dan, Dave, Aslak and others who are driving
> the BDD discussion.
>
> This is not a contest between approaches.
I''m pretty bad at the tongue-in-cheek thing.

What I think newcomers to BDD will find - and that''s because BDD
advocates tend to explain this very well - is that BDD is strongly
rooted in TDD, XP, and domain-driven design.

My favorite way to explain BDD is:

There''s a quote that says "Seek not to follow in the footsteps of
masters, seek what they sought."  BDD presents the "seek what they
sought" as first-level knowledge.

I apologize for making a statement that might suggest there''s a
conflict where there isn''t one.

Pat

On Feb 4, 2008 9:19 AM, Pat Maddox <pergesu at gmail.com>
wrote:
> My favorite way to explain BDD is:
>
> There''s a quote that says "Seek not to follow in the
footsteps of
> masters, seek what they sought."  BDD presents the "seek what
they
> sought" as first-level knowledge.
That should read "...presents the ''what they sought''
..."