On 10/20/07, Pat Maddox <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > On 10/19/07, Scott Taylor <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > > Following up on the last idea: One thing that I don't think is yet > > widely understood is that there is no such thing as a "unit" or > > "integration" test - test happen on a continuum (the classification > > of a test is not a black and white sort of thing). Your "assumption > > tests" are basically model-level integration tests, which are not as > > fine grained as the normal spec (which would mock/stub out AR::Base, > > associations, validations (with load...), etc). > > While vocabulary is important, particularly shared vocab, it's even > more important not to get too hung up on it. I've read plenty of > sources that say a unit test only touches one class, and if you're > interacting with more than one class then it's an integration test. > That's a silly distinction to make - as you point out, there's no > clear definition of what a unit test is. You should be comfortable > working at the appropriate level of granularity, whether it's writing > a spec for one small method in a given context, or for a couple > collaborating objects. > > Also, I probably wouldn't go up to Kent Beck and say, "your book was > nice and all, but I wish you would have admitted that you were writing > INTEGRATION tests instead of unit tests." :) > > I think it becomes too easy to use process or arbitrary constraints as > a crutch, instead of simple careful thought. If you find yourself > doing strange or painful things in order to make them fit some > definition, then you're doing yourself a disservice and need to step > back and evaluate your goals.
Agreed. This is exactly why we talk about stories and specs instead of integration and units. I realize that I've slung the term integration tests around when talking about about stories so I apologize if I've added to the confusion. The distinction we make between stories and specs is that stories describe how a system behaves in terms of a user's experience, whereas specs describe how an object behaves in terms of another object's experience. Cheers, David _______________________________________________ rspec-users mailing list rspec-users@rubyforge.org http://rubyforge.org/mailman/listinfo/rspec-users
