As usual, my considerations grouped by chapter:
Introduction #
The book starts with an introduction to the reasons behind BDD. It’s a cool introduction, short and clear. It’s very useful if these topics are new for you. if you need a spectacular and short introduction to BDD/TDD reasons watch this by Corey Haines.
Hello #
The chapter follows the every-good-programming-book-starts-with-a-hello-world rule. The author provides two examples: a spec with the class described by the spec itself and a cucumber feature with its step definitions. If you already know this stuff, you can skip the chapter.
Describing Features #
The chapter starts with a brief description of a game that guides the reader throughout the book. The author explains the rules of the game in a nice way. He describes how to extract stories from a project and write cucumber features and scenarios. If you are new to cucumber you may find this chapter enlightening.
Automating Features With Cucumber #
Writing features and scenarios is like writing in less or more plain English. That is nice but it’s not strictly related to the quick feedback you need while developing. So the author introduces you to step definitions and the various parts of a step: given, when and then. A very clear explanation.
Describing Code With RSpec #
Cucumber is your friend when you are at the application level but, when you need more granularity in your automatic tests, you would like to use RSpec. The chapter presents the anatomy of a spec. The first paragraphs are interesting, the point of view of the author is simple and clear. It explains details without wasting your time. Then it goes on with the red/green technique and you’ll read how to describe code behaviour (it’s all about behaviour! a nice guy would say). The chapter finishes with refactoring. BDD gives you confidence with refactoring. That’s why I’m in love with it.
Adding new features #
When you add a new feature to a project, you may break both your features and your specs. That’s just fine, the author guides you through adding new features and getting all things working quickly.
Specifying an algorithm #
This chapter is one of my favourites. It contains a number of important things. First of all, it gives you a great piece of advice: start with the simplest thing and then go on with the next simplest. Following this path you find nice opportunities to refactor code without losing confidence. If you break something, your specs will tell you. In short, rapid feedback is key.
Refactoring with confidence #
I’ve just said that the previous chapter is one of my favourites. Well, maybe this one is even better. The author introduces you to code smells. A code smell is “a hint that something has gone wrong somewhere in your code”. It’s a very enjoyable chapter.
Feeding back what we’ve learned #
This is a wrapping up chapter that will show you how to experiment with code in order to understand if there is room for improvements.
The case for BDD #
The part of the book devoted to BDD as a practice and a technique starts with this chapter. The author gives you a bit of background about BDD, some fundamental reasons behind it. A very readable chapter.
Writing software that matters #
The chapter goes beyond the reasons and gives you a concrete perspective of how to apply BDD to projects.
Code examples #
The chapter covers the basic syntax of RSpec. It is very informative and I think you’ll enjoy it.
RSpec::Expectations #
I really liked this chapter because how the author explains things. It is
detailed and simple. In particular, I enjoyed the paragraph “How It works”
related to have methods.
RSpec::Mocks #
The chapter explores the world of mocks and stubs. It gives you a complete view of names and options that you have when you need mocks.
Tools and integration #
RSpec has a nice executable, you can use it in a terminal. The author will show the numerous options the executable has. Furthermore, he will give you a short description of how to integrate RSpec with Rake, autotest and TextMate.
Extending RSpec #
RSpec is a polite Ruby citizen. This chapter covers the configurations you need to know if you want to change the default behaviour of RSpec.
Intro to Cucumber #
The chapter gives you an effective introduction to the crucial aspects of Cucumber.
Cucumber details #
This chapter goes straight to Cucumber details. Informative.
BDD in Rails #
Rails is everyone’s framework. This chapter tells you how to get a good working BDD cycle in Rails. Furthermore, it explains how to set up a Rails project with RSpec.
Cucumber in Rails #
Like the previous chapter but for Cucumber.
Simulating the browser with Webrat #
Webrat is a nice DSL that helps you testing an application by simulating the browser. It allows you to test how various layers of a Rails application work together.
Automating the browser with Webrat and Selenium #
Webrat helps you to simulate the interaction with your application as if the test were executed by a browser. However, this can’t help with pages with rich JavaScript interactions. Selenium can help with that and the chapter covers basic aspects of integrating RSpec, Webrat and Selenium.
Rails views #
The chapter answers the question “Why do I have to test views in isolations?” with nice reasons. It teaches you how to test your Rails views and how to mock ActiveRecord Models.
Rails controllers #
As the previous one but for controllers.
Rails Models #
As the previous one but for models.
The book contains three appendixes and the first one is wonderful. You’ll read a nice introduction to a really wonderful project: rubyspec. I strongly recommend you to take a look to this project.
What I liked most #
This book covers topics I like very much, so it would be strange if I disliked it. You surely have to read this book if you care about the topics covered. What I really likes most is the care for details. For example, you’ll find many things covered with implementation details about the framework. This approach increases the quality of a technical book and I’d like to see this kind of details in other books too.
What I disliked most #
Nothing in particular. The book covers many other things apart from RSpec and, ironically, this could be considered a flaw because you would prefer to stay focused on the framework. However, the other topics are quite interesting to read so I don’t consider it to be a problem.