From: Sam Smoot <ssmoot@...>
Date: 2007-01-20T09:55:05+09:00
Subject: Re: I don't get rspec


nicknameoptional wrote:
> besides more English like, how is it better than the assert_equal?

It's not. If you're doing TDD right, then BDD is just what you're doing
already, by another name.

The problem is a lot of people don't do TDD right, and the semantics of
it raise the barrier to entry.

BDD is about trying to change those semantics, so TDD
As-It-Was-Meant-To-Be becomes more popular. It's just a bonus that
rSpec reads so nicely and prints out nice looking reports.

So I was in the same boat as you. Then I decided: "You know, they have
a point about people misinterpreting TDD. So is trying to change the
language used to describe it really such an awful thing?"

And that's where I am now.

Is using rSpec in your projects going to increase velocity by 10%? Or
make it easier to communicate with business people? Or allow you to
write better tests? Have fewer bugs? Any of these things? No. Not if
you're already doing TDD well. It might help more developers to get
there though. It might help new team-members integrate faster with less
training on TDD and the way you're doing things. It might just give you
a warm fuzzy. Compared to a lot of the arbitrary and complex choices we
sometimes make, you could do a lot worse I think.