On Oct 17, 2007, at 6:52 pm, Ed Howland wrote: > If it were up to me, I would start with BDD, Probably, immediately > right after hello_world.rb. Even before they learn any Ruby syntax at > all. Your toy app sounds more like a real application to me. It has > actual user stories, confirmable results, etc. > > Why not break the usual cycle of code a little, test, code a bit more, > test, repeat, from the start? RSpec is a DSL, like Rails is a DSL. And > you don't need to know much ruby to get started in Rails. I say that > holds true in RSpec as well. The only qualms I can see is the concept > of Mocks. But you could introduce that in something he is familiar > with like Java.
That's an interesting approach. My only hesitation is that if he's seen to be writing Rails apps it might be interpreted by management that he's learnt everything there is to know about behaviour-driven object-oriented MVC web programming, and I wouldn't get chance to show him the good stuff before I leave. I think it's good to see something working, but I wanted to avoid instilling Rails = Ruby in him. That's why I started writing specs for trivial things, then simple things like loading a YAML file. Interestingly, mocks were a tough one. It took a while to explain the difference between full and partial mocks, and the difference between mocking instances and stubbing on classes. I don't think it was the concept of imaginary objects, more the idea of setting expectations on them and describing interactions, as opposed to seeing whether the final output of the program is right. > I only wish my mentor had forced me to learn test first, back in the > day. But that was before all you geniuses where on the scene to set us > straight! I feel spoilt too, I was lucky to stumble on RSpec (and more importantly, rspec-users) so soon after I started learning unit testing. And Jim is a lucky guy too, having someone like me around to tirelessly relay the replies of experts to him. Ashley -- blog @ http://aviewfromafar.net/ linked-in @ http://www.linkedin.com/in/ashleymoran currently @ home _______________________________________________ rspec-users mailing list rspec-users@rubyforge.org http://rubyforge.org/mailman/listinfo/rspec-users
