From: Phlip <phlip2005@...>
Date: 2008-08-03T23:03:45+09:00
Subject: Re: unit testing advice

James Britt wrote:

> http://www.infoq.com/interviews/Dave-Astels-and-Steven-Baker#
> 
> Quote:
> 
> I guess you don't use the Rails code generation then.
> 
> Steven: No, not at all. I use TDD to generate code manually.
> 
> So you don't even do model generation with Rails?
> 
> Steven: Not at all. Especially when I'm pairing with somebody who's 
> never used Rails before or who has never done TDD before I find it 
> especially important not to rely on the generator to give me test stubs, 
> to give me things that I should know or that I should be providing for 
> myself. When the failings specifications tell me that I need it, because 
> that would be contradicting what I'm trying to teach.

I don't know if we are discussing the same thing. This Rails command...

   script/generate model MyModel

...does not create "stubs". It creates all the files that back up a Model, 
including its my_model_test.rb and fixtures/my_models.yml files.

I can't imagine not using it, because all it saves you is a lot of rote typing. 
Writing a test that fails because "fixtures/my_models.yml" does not exist is not 
TDD, because that's not production code.

I often write a test that fails because MyModel does not exist yet, to start the 
cycle.

I think Dave and Steve are discussing some tool that reads Ruby classes and 
spits out stubbed test cases for each method.

-- 
   Phlip