I have been implementing unit test BDD style using underscores. Although I do not mind that approach but I am always in search for a simpler solution. To be clear BDD is not only about how to name our test methods. Anyway, that is another discussion.

I recently wrote few unit tests bdd style using IronSpec framework which is part of IronRuby. I was amazed how simple BDD test became when implemented in IronSpec. Here is a link to my article which describe the approach. Scroll down to the bottom to see the updated code.

http://highoncoding.com/Articles/585_Unit_Testing_CLR_Assembly_Using_IronRuby_with_Spec.aspx

yes and its shaping to be more like shoulda the more I work with it. I will have to strangle both you and Jason later for infecting my brain with such concepts.

Can’t we all just get along?

But as interesting as that is, I’m all for more BDD options that use C# and NUnit, since those are what my current team has standardized on, and sometimes it can be tough to shift a whole team onto another language for writing tests or to using a different testing framework.

Just googled on IronRuby and RSpec and this came up: http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/magazine/dd434651.aspx

Haven’t read it yet, but I’m surprised I haven’t seen more blog posts about this if it works well.

I like seeing posts about other people doing BDD. Its something I feel comfortable with but have yet to have that ‘click’ of understanding.

Thanks again for the commentary.

Now that said, there are two important things you should know.

1) You do not have to use those matchers at all, they are totally 100% optional. Just throwing any exception will fail the test (it’ll show status of error), so you can use NUnit asserts, other peoples extensions or really hand code to generate your desired effect.

2)I know not everyone sees things the way i do (which is a good thing), so I’m working right now on a DSL , and an base class to create your own matchers. RSpec has the same thing so that people can create their specific matchers for each project instead of just having line after line in their specs violating dry.

@Eyston Tooling, and uptake with other developers. Boo is a gorgeous .Net language well suited for building DSL’s and what I’d prefer, but the following make that a non-starter:

For me from a productivity standpoint I lose easy refactoring with Resharper (this is a big time win), and that alone would slow down my BDD flow quite a bit. If i wrote my own generators and regex based renaming (I like to try that out someday) I could make this a non-issue, but not today.

Finally, try getting your average junior developer who may not even have a great grasp of C# to learn Boo and you’ll quickly see there is a big “cost” to going that route. BDD is hard enough to teach without actively tossing extra barriers in front of it. Granted I’d get a much much nicer syntax with other languages, I am a bit held back by the realities of a lot of .Net developers reliance on Visual Studio, intellisense and “framework based” learning.

Thanks again everyone for the feedback I really appreciate you all taking the time.

So your assertion would change to be
_game.lives.ShouldEqual(3);