Comments on: Starting with BDD vs. starting with TDD

By: Mitch

Mitch — Tue, 02 Feb 2010 15:50:18 +0000

can see the benefits of BDD when moving forward, however I too have a hard time wrapping my head around it. However, after what Sean put up, I can @ least start to see some of the syntex in action: Pointing at an executable to make up html on-the-fly is nifty.

By: Mitch

Mitch — Tue, 02 Feb 2010 15:46:45 +0000

Although I can see the benefits of BDD when moving forward, I too have a hard time wrappin my head around it. However, after what Sean put up, I can @ least start to see some of the syntex in action: Pointing at an executable to make up html on-the-fly is nifty.

By: Daniel Sykes

Daniel Sykes — Thu, 12 Feb 2009 19:16:30 +0000

Thanks once again Sean this is a great post! Keep’em coming

By: Claudio Perrone

Claudio Perrone — Wed, 10 Dec 2008 06:41:47 +0000

Hi Sean,
“BDD has a much better alignment with business concerns and allows us to create tests that are parallel with User Stories/Acceptance criteria.” As Colin said before, I don’t think this is really true at this unit level. BDD is a bit overloaded these days, in my opinion, as it seems to mean different things to different people.
The cucumber approach fits that sentence a lot better (although I’m not sure about the need/opportunity for a FIT-style integration yet). You may find interesting a post I wrote about MisBehave, which (I will move it forward over Christmas): http://www.claudioperrone.com/blog/articles/2008/11/09/misbehave-01-oslos-mgrammar-for-bdd-executable-specifications/

By: colinjack

colinjack — Tue, 09 Dec 2008 20:08:33 +0000

@Scott
Sorry should have been clearer, I just mean he popularized the TDD->BDD effort and I thought he was involved in the RSpec effort.

By: Scott Bellware

Scott Bellware — Tue, 09 Dec 2008 19:45:34 +0000

Ronald,

Without getting into the user story thing, I specifically have said to write specifications in the language of the experience of the software rather than the implementation of the software.

By: Scott Bellware

Scott Bellware — Tue, 09 Dec 2008 19:43:45 +0000

Sean,

> addressbook_contains_person

It’s a bit superfluous to mention addressbook again since it is the stated subject (concern) of the context.

By: Scott Bellware

Scott Bellware — Tue, 09 Dec 2008 19:40:55 +0000

Colin,

I don’t think Dave Astels popularized this particular approach to using spec frameworks. He created a framework, but the specific practice and test pattern came significantly later from other sources.

By: Jim Zimmerman

Jim Zimmerman — Tue, 09 Dec 2008 16:58:01 +0000

I was at that talk and you did a great job! I ended up coding up a new prototype of a new project all using BDD, resharper, your AutoHotKey script that night for 3 hours. I know, pretty geeky, but watching football all day or night does not really teach you anything new.

By: Ronald S Woan

Ronald S Woan — Mon, 08 Dec 2008 21:24:58 +0000

I think the key that most developers around here have a tough time with is that in BDD you should start with user stories from the business owner perspective and from there create specs at the highest level possible and drive them down to more granular tests.

It is then useful that your spec/test framework allows you to codify these specs in an executable form that allows you to know that your code base or artifiacts are satisfying the stories and implementing the spec.

Or at least this is what I think Aaron Jensen and Scott Bellware have been expousing in our Seattle Alt.Net meetings.

I have to admit that I am not all the way there yet, but Aaron did suggest that for teams that have not implemented TDD, skipping directly to BDD might be simpler than gradual transition.

Aaron covers some of these points in his blog around mspec:

http://codebetter.com/blogs/aaron.jensen/default.aspx