DRY up story

Testing RSpec
1

In David’s presentation @ RailsConf, he has this example:

Story: measure progress towards registration goals
As a conference organizer
I want to see a report of registrations
So that I can measure progress towards registration goals

Scenario: one registration shows as 1%
Given a goal of 200 registrations
When 1 attendee registers
Then the goal should be 1% achieved

Scenario: one registration less than the goal shows as 99%
Given a goal of 200 registrations
When 199 attendees register
Then the goal should be 99% achieved

Notice that Given part is exactly the same for both scenarios. Does it
possible to DRY up it a little bit by putting Given up to right after
Story part? Or it is just too crazy?

Yi

2

On Jun 24, 2008, at 1:54 PM, Yi Wen wrote:

Then the goal should be 1% achieved

Scenario: one registration less than the goal shows as 99%
Given a goal of 200 registrations
When 199 attendees register
Then the goal should be 99% achieved

Notice that Given part is exactly the same for both scenarios. Does it
possible to DRY up it a little bit by putting Given up to right after
Story part? Or it is just too crazy?

Depends on who the audience is. If you’re using plain text w/
customers, yes it’s crazy. The whole point is to keep things non-
programatic.

If you’re a developer, then write the stuff in pure Ruby and you have
plenty of language-tools to DRY things up to your heart’s content.

3

On Tue, Jun 24, 2008 at 3:00 PM, David C. [email protected]
wrote:

Given a goal of 200 registrations
Story part? Or it is just too crazy?

Depends on who the audience is. If you’re using plain text w/ customers,
yes it’s crazy. The whole point is to keep things non-programatic.

If you’re a developer, then write the stuff in pure Ruby and you have
plenty of language-tools to DRY things up to your heart’s content.

Or leave the plain-text MOIST* and rejoice in the fact that the step can
be
shared and therefor DRY things up.

*MOIST = More Obvious In Simple Text

–
Rick DeNatale

My blog on Ruby
http://talklikeaduck.denhaven2.com/

4

The problem I have with this reasoning is that the point of plain text
stories is to get more stakeholder involvement. Being able to express
shared content in plain text allows the non-programmer reader to
verify more details (for example UI interactions within a high level
story). I would like to be able to express the high level intent of
the scenario and then (still in readable english like text) describe
the UI interactions for each step, or the business logic details, or
what ever should be verified by the customer to be correct about the
details. Saying “you can always use ruby” assumes the audience is
programmers. In most cases this is not the case for several levels of
detail on the kinds of projects I am working.

Michael

5

On Thu, Sep 25, 2008 at 9:42 AM, Michael L. [email protected] wrote:

The problem I have with this reasoning is that the point of plain text
stories is to get more stakeholder involvement. Being able to express
shared content in plain text allows the non-programmer reader to verify more
details (for example UI interactions within a high level story). I would
like to be able to express the high level intent of the scenario and then
(still in readable english like text) describe the UI interactions for each
step, or the business logic details, or what ever should be verified by the
customer to be correct about the details. Saying “you can always use ruby”
assumes the audience is programmers.

I think you misunderstand what I wrote. I made no such assumption. I
said very specifically that this was audience dependent and that if
you’re audience is customers you can look at it one way, but if it’s
just developers you can use the Ruby tools. I can see why you might be
confused by “If you’re a developer” rather than “if your audience is
all developers,” but that was the intent.

In terms of ways of sharing content, there is some interesting
discussion going on around Cucumber, which will replace Story Runner.
Have a look at these:

http://blog.davidchelimsky.net/2008/9/22/cucumber
http://rspec.lighthouseapp.com/projects/16211/tickets/3

Please feel free to join the conversation there, or on this list.

Cheers,
David

6

On Jun 24, 2008, at 4:31 PM, Rick DeNatale wrote:

Notice that Given part is exactly the same for both scenarios. Does it

Or leave the plain-text MOIST* and rejoice in the fact that the step
can be shared and therefor DRY things up.

*MOIST = More Obvious In Simple Text

w00t!

Got one for CLEAR?

7

Thanks for the clarrification of your intent for the comment. After
reading the linked threads I have the following questions/comments:

  1. All the responses to sharing story content get “use ruby” as the
    response.
    2( I understand you appear to find this adequate. I do not.
  2. Should I open a new ticket for my suggestion or just add to the
    existing ticket?

What I would like to see is something like a “feature” that is just
for reuse. The current scenario and feature in cucumber combine 2
concepts: the definition of a scenario/feature and the execution of a
scenario/feature. This is like being unable to create a function
without calling it immediately in place. While I appreciate for the
top level of control this is convenient and natural for the reader.
It largely prevents reuse. I would like a new keyword that just
defines a sequence of steps as one step. I want step definitions in
the story language.

StepGiven: Log in as admin
Given: I am registered as admin, David, secret
When I log in with David, secret
Then I should see “Welcome David”
And I should see a link to “Manage Content”

Scenario: Admin clicks on “Manage Content”
Given Log in as admin
When I click on “Manage Content”
Then I should see a link to “Go back to menu”

This would only execute the scenario once, unlike GivenScenario. You
can place StepGiven, and StepWhen, and StepThen in any file and they
only define steps that can be used by other content. They can
reference steps created in either ruby or story language. You can
choose to present the nested steps or not. In HTML output it could be
expanded and collapsed. In text output there could be an option to
limit output nesting depth.

To make this fully functional there should be a Require: that allows
files with step definitions to be required, solving most of your
shared content objections for file management. Content can be
required and need not be executed unless so desired and referenced by
a scenario.

It would require the title for the Steps to be regex expressions and
variables dealt with in stories I guess. But, when presenting to
customers having shared content is important for validation of the
specifications. For acceptance testing one level may be enough, but
for specifications there needs to be nesting and shared content that
can be verified by the customer or their non-programmer representative
or domain experts. For reference the project I hope to use this on is
expected to be 50-100 technical people. We are going to really need
readable specs for business logic, UI, and so on.

What do you think?

Michael

8

Using a “macros” directory rather than explicit dependencies (as is
now true for steps) is fine. Unless you have a ton of macros it
should not be too bad performance wise. And, it prevents duplicate
steps from being used in different parts of a large spec unknowingly.

The most likely use case for us is to decompose top level steps into
more detail. The way I would use it is Given decomposes to Givens,
and Then to Thens, but When can decompose into anything. That way the
preconditions on the whole sequence are only preconditions, and the
post conditions are only post conditions, but the sequence can contain
both pre and post conditions. Each step of a sequence can have its
own pre/post conditions. When viewing the results I would normally
not care to see the decompositions. But, in the case where the
decomposition is for UI details the UI designers would want to see the
details, while most other reviewers would not.

I think I will submit a new ticket with what you suggest and what we
need from it.

Michael

9

On Fri, Sep 26, 2008 at 1:48 PM, Michael L. [email protected] wrote:

Thanks for the clarrification of your intent for the comment. After reading
the linked threads I have the following questions/comments:

  1. All the responses to sharing story content get “use ruby” as the
    response.
    2( I understand you appear to find this adequate. I do not.
  2. Should I open a new ticket for my suggestion or just add to the existing
    ticket?

That ticket (Lighthouse - Beautifully Simple Issue Tracking)
is fine. The thing that Aslak is already planning on doesn’t really
address aggregating steps written in “scenario language”.

StepGiven: Log in as admin
This would only execute the scenario once, unlike GivenScenario. You can

What do you think?
I’m not comfortable with the idea of stripping out the Thens or adding
constructs like Require to features. Dependencies are a code concept
and I think that stating dependencies in a feature would be more
confusing that clarifying.

I do appreciate the goal, however, of being able to express “macros”
in “scenario” language. What I’d propose is that we add a macros
directory in which we’d have macro definition files that are just like
the ruby step definition files. So while you could define such a macro
in a ruby file like this (once Aslak implements it):

Given “I am logged in as admin” do
Given “I am registered as admin, David, secret”
When “I log in with David, secret”
end

… you’d also be able to do it in a macro file like this (macro is
just a suggestion, feel free to counter):

Macros:
Given: I am logged in as admin
Given I am registered as admin, David, secret
When I log in with David, secret

WDYT about that? Now you could use ruby or “scenario language” to say:

Scenario: admin can manage content
Given I am logged in as admin
Then I should see I should see a link to “Manage Content”

Although, now that I see this, I don’t like the fact that the Given
includes a When (an action). I think I’d rather see this expressed
this way:

Macros:
When: I log in as admin
Given I am registered as admin, David, secret
When I log in with David, secret

Scenario: admin can manage content
When I log in as admin
Then I should see I should see a link to “Manage Content”

Then the question becomes whether the output should “explode” the
macro for the reader. I think it would be useful sometimes, and
detrimental other times.

I guess, in the end, I might never use this feature myself, even if it
was added. I find the currently available tools much simpler.

Any other thoughts on this?

David

10

Ticket created
http://rspec.lighthouseapp.com/projects/16211-cucumber/tickets/20-ability-to-write-steps-in-scenario-language

Michael