Hi all,
Just wanted to get some feedback and opinions on something… I have
been using Cucumber/Story Runner since plaintext support was introduced.
(So, since October/November of 2007.) Throughout this time I have used
it on various projects. Some projects had customer involvement in help
writing the scenarios, some I mostly wrote the scenarios after gathering
requirements and then got verification from the customer, and others
involved no customer at all (i.e. I was the customer). In all three
cases I have gotten a lot of benefit from the upfront analysis that
writing the feature forces you to do and the outside-in development that
follows. That said, the business analysis and outside-in development
can be accomplished with any tool (i.e. rspec with webrat for webapps).
In the past I have always defaulted on using the GWT (Given, When, Then)
syntax for most of my acceptance tests, but that may be because I am so
accustomed to that workflow by now.
So… I’m curious what people’s thoughts are. When writing acceptance
tests how do you choose which tool is best for the job? I often hear
people complaining about the GWT syntax and they see no benefit of it
over the frameworks that provide contexts (i.e rspec, shoulda, etc).[1]
In what cases, if any, do you think the GWT gets in the way and how? In
particular, if you are writing an app or lib whose customers/users are
all developers do you still think there is value in the GWT syntax that
Cucumber provides?
I have my own thoughts on the matter, but in playing devil’s advocate I
want to get other people’s thoughts before I skew you with mine.
Thanks,
Ben
[1] The Practicality of the RSpec Story Runner - Dan Manges's Blog