# Integration testing tools? story runner, rbehave, cucumber?

**URL:** <https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/integration-testing-tools-story-runner-rbehave-cucumber/150514>\
**Category:** Ruby\
**Created:** [October 9, 2008, 11:25am UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/integration-testing-tools-story-runner-rbehave-cucumber/150514 "2008-10-09T11:25:27Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 3\
**Page:** 1

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**Author:** ![Gernot\_H](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/g/54ee81/32.png) [@Gernot\_H](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/Gernot_H)\
**Post date:** [October 9, 2008, 11:25am UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/integration-testing-tools-story-runner-rbehave-cucumber/150514/1 "2008-10-09T11:25:27Z")

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Dear all,

I joined a pretty young VC company a month ago. We are using  
ruby/merb/datamapper/MySQL, and doing agile development. We use rspec  
for unit tests. Now we want to start writing integration tests. For this  
I found out the existence of rbehave (Dan N. et al.) and Story Runner  
(David C.). I also discovered cucumber as a successor to Story  
Runner. But I can find very little on rbehave, and its development seems  
to have stopped in 2006. Is there any concensus on the best tools for  
integration testing in ruby?

Best regards, Gernot H.  
Cirius Technologies, Tokyo, Japan

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**Author:** ![Gernot\_H](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/g/54ee81/32.png) [@Gernot\_H](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/Gernot_H)\
**Post date:** [October 9, 2008, 12:21pm UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/integration-testing-tools-story-runner-rbehave-cucumber/150514/2 "2008-10-09T12:21:55Z")

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On Oct 9, 5:22 am, Gernot H. [removed\_email\_address@domain.invalid](mailto:removed_email_address@domain.invalid) wrote:

> Dear all,
> 
> I joined a pretty young VC company a month ago. We are using  
> ruby/merb/datamapper/MySQL, and doing agile development. We use rspec  
> for unit tests. Now we want to start writing integration tests. For this  
> I found out the existence of rbehave (Dan N. et al.) and Story Runner  
> (David C.). I also discovered cucumber as a successor to Story  
> Runner. But I can find very little on rbehave, and its development seems  
> to have stopped in 2006. Is there any concensus on the best tools for  
> integration testing in ruby?

“A few days ago, David C. announced that RSpec’s Story Runner  
now works with the rspec\_on\_rails plugin. Story Runner is the result  
of Dan N.'s hard work to merge his rbehave project into RSpec. This  
gives us the ability to write acceptance tests using RSpec’s  
expressive expectations. In addition, Story Runner provides a  
structure for your stories (acceptance tests) that helps clearly  
express the assumptions and expectations of your code.”

See:

> **[eli.st](http://evang.eli.st/blog/2007/9/1/user-stories-with-rspec-s-story-runner)**
>
> This domain may be for sale!

I must say though, reading over all this stuff, I think you all are  
suffering from an over abundance of time and brain cells --K.I.S.S.  
seems to have become old-fashioned.

T.

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<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![Gernot\_H](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/g/54ee81/32.png) [@Gernot\_H](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/Gernot_H)\
**Post date:** [October 10, 2008, 3:01am UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/integration-testing-tools-story-runner-rbehave-cucumber/150514/3 "2008-10-10T03:01:47Z")

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Trans [removed\_email\_address@domain.invalid](mailto:removed_email_address@domain.invalid) writes:

> > integration testing in ruby?
> 
> I must say though, reading over all this stuff, I think you all are  
> suffering from an over abundance of time and brain cells --K.I.S.S.  
> seems to have become old-fashioned.

Thank you, yes, I found this entry in my searchd but did not notice the  
merging of rbehave (mea culpa …). I’ll take a look at the screencast  
later. OK, I am happy to use RSpec with its, um, integrated integration  
test.

I also agree on KISS being absent, but I think that with team work, many  
“stakeholders”, incremental development and gradual concretization of  
modules and functionality, things that automate tests (if only for  
regression) are very valuable. For instance, we have hudson running  
continuous build tests at 5 minute intervals… the brains I guess  
comes from a) implementing a maintanable automatic framework, and b)  
writing sane tests.

Best regards, Gernot  
Cirius Technologies, Tokyo, Japan