# New to "Agile Development" - should I use RSpec or Test::Unit?

**URL:** <https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/new-to-agile-development-should-i-use-rspec-or-test-unit/138132>\
**Category:** Rails\
**Created:** [May 20, 2008, 2:24pm UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/new-to-agile-development-should-i-use-rspec-or-test-unit/138132 "2008-05-20T14:24:28Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 5\
**Page:** 1

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**Author:** ![wemagor](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/w/8edcca/32.png) [@wemagor](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/wemagor)\
**Post date:** [May 20, 2008, 2:24pm UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/new-to-agile-development-should-i-use-rspec-or-test-unit/138132/1 "2008-05-20T14:24:28Z")

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Hi everyone, I’m just now really starting to look into Agile  
Development, and so I’m trying to gauge what the Rails community’s  
preference is in regards to using RSpec versus the built-in Test::Unit.  
I haven’t really delved much into testing in the past, I’m sad to say,  
but I understand why it’s beneficial to writing maintainable code and I  
wish to start in order to become a better developer.

I am starting a new project for a potential business opportunity, and I  
would really like to use more agile techniques when designing it to A)  
Improve the quality of the code, and B) Improve my own skills since by  
and large my experience has been of the “Just hack together something  
that works” variety (not by choice, of course).

The biggest hurdle I seem to be facing is that I never seem to know what  
to test for. I’ve read a little about Test-Driven Development in the  
past, but when I try to do it I always think that I’m testing things  
which don’t matter; the blogs and articles I’ve read seem to give both  
sides of the coin in regards to this - I’ve seen some say that it’s bad  
to test the built-in functionality of Rails (because those would have  
their own tests anyway and if something like ActiveRecord, for example,  
doesn’t work the right way internally then something is wrong with Rails  
itself, and not your code). I’ve also seen a lot of examples that DO  
test the built-in functionality, although that might be because they are  
tutorials.

In any event, I recently learned about RSpec (actually it was from  
reading the book “The Rails Way”, which suggests to use RSpec instead of  
Test::Unit), and while Behavior-Driven Development seems a little easier  
to grasp due to the English-like syntax, it brings a whole new problem:  
Half the time I’m not sure at first what the behavior should be to  
begin with - what I mean is that I know in my head what I want to be  
able to do, but I have a hard time fleshing it out into a spec. The BDD  
style also seems to be heavily in favor of mocking and stubbing as  
opposed to Test::Unit which has a test database, which I’ve heard about  
but never done so is a little confusing as well. It doesn’t “feel” like  
I’m really testing things, since most examples I’ve seen will stub out  
the find methods to return predefined values… so how do you know that  
it’s returning what you need? I know that you can use fixtures with  
RSpec, but I’ve heard that this is basically tacked on instead of  
assumed like with the built-in stuff.

As a general rule I try to follow the best practices of the community,  
so I can learn from more advanced developers and also have a comparable  
skillset for the future. In this case, however, I’m not really sure  
which path to take.

Any advice/suggestions would be greatly appreciated. I am still sort of  
learning how Rails works… coming from a .NET background, the  
conventions are a little confusing at first and seem a little  
restrictive, but overall I am enjoying it.

- Wayne

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**Author:** ![wemagor](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/w/8edcca/32.png) [@wemagor](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/wemagor)\
**Post date:** [May 20, 2008, 3:22pm UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/new-to-agile-development-should-i-use-rspec-or-test-unit/138132/2 "2008-05-20T15:22:38Z")

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On 20 May 2008, at 13:23, Wayne M. wrote:

> I am starting a new project for a potential business opportunity,  
> and I  
> would really like to use more agile techniques when designing it to A)  
> Improve the quality of the code, and B) Improve my own skills since by  
> and large my experience has been of the “Just hack together something  
> that works” variety (not by choice, of course).
> 
> The biggest hurdle I seem to be facing is that I never seem to know  
> what  
> to test for. I’ve read a little about Test-Driven Development in the

Before you write your code, think about what your code should do and  
write a test that tests that.  
When you’re about to add a new feature to some code, again write the  
test first. If you find a bug, write a failing test that exhibits the  
problem and then fix the bug.

I wouldn’t fret too much about using rspec or test::unit. do whatever  
you’re comfortable with. (Personally I use test::unit. There are some  
nice bits to rspec (and some of them are available for test::unit in  
the form of shoulda) but I don’t really buy the (what I perceive to  
be) excessive use of natural language like syntaxes.

> RSpec, but I’ve heard that this is basically tacked on instead of  
> assumed like with the built-in stuff.

The idea here is that you are testing each unit in isolation: if you  
break something you want 1 failure in the tests for that bit of code,  
not 20 failures all over the app that make you spend time working  
through them before realising the problem lies in another bit of code.  
So you mock & stub to verify that you’re interacting properly with the  
other bits. This does mean that you’re not testing the integration of  
your classes with other classes to the same extent (which has both up  
and downsides). I could waffle on about this for ages, but I suggest  
you read Martin F.'s essay:

> **[Mocks Aren't Stubs](https://martinfowler.com/articles/mocksArentStubs.html)**
>
> Explaining the difference between Mock Objects and Stubs (together with other forms of Test Double). Also the difference between classical and mockist styles of unit testing.

Fred

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**Author:** ![wemagor](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/w/8edcca/32.png) [@wemagor](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/wemagor)\
**Post date:** [May 20, 2008, 3:53pm UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/new-to-agile-development-should-i-use-rspec-or-test-unit/138132/3 "2008-05-20T15:53:39Z")

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RSpec is a bit of a resource hog so I stopped using it. And there  
wasn’t a good version of Growl for Windows when I tried it.

But if you develop on a fast dual-core system with a couple of gigs of  
ram, try RSpec.

F

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**Author:** ![wemagor](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/w/8edcca/32.png) [@wemagor](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/wemagor)\
**Post date:** [May 20, 2008, 4:21pm UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/new-to-agile-development-should-i-use-rspec-or-test-unit/138132/4 "2008-05-20T16:21:27Z")

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I prefer rspec mainly for it’s ability to truly tests in isolation…  
the (virtual) elimination of fixtures and the db-dependence is well  
worth the switch.

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**Author:** ![wemagor](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/w/8edcca/32.png) [@wemagor](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/wemagor)\
**Post date:** [May 20, 2008, 5:53pm UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/new-to-agile-development-should-i-use-rspec-or-test-unit/138132/5 "2008-05-20T17:53:36Z")

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I would also consider “Shoulda” in that it is 100% compatible with  
existing test::Unit BUT it also extends test::unit to allow for a much  
better syntax that is more behavior oriented.

> **[thoughtbot case studies featuring design and development projects for...](https://thoughtbot.com/case-studies)**
>
> Check out some thoughtbot case studies featuring design and development projects for websites, mobile and web applications across HealthTech, EdTech, FinTech B2B and B2C.

The thoughtbot guys really outdid themselves with this testing framework  
in my opinion

I would also consider checking out object-daddy which is lesser known  
which is probably the most elegant way to avoid fixtures that I have  
ever seen.

> **[GitHub - flogic/object\_daddy: Who's your daddy? Kill Rails fixtures, Don't...](https://github.com/flogic/object_daddy/tree/master)**
>
> master

I am constantly impressed with the cool plugins that are released by the  
ruby community for testing. There is almost no excuse not to do proper  
testing.