I have a similar perspective from my own personal experience. I am still quite the novice, but I'm as much of a novice in RSpec as I am in Ruby / RoR. Honestly, a lot of my specs in new sections end up having great coverage, but are full of real models and few of the "purist" BDD practices. Before I started with BDD I did a lot of reading so I feel that I have a good understanding of the goal, and I do have some specs with little database access and great implementation of the MVC "goodness" that RoR supports, but I simply can't always keep this up even when I want to.
A lot of times if I'm writing some code for a challenging piece, it's challenging to me because I don't already know how to do it. I can write the basic "here's the setup, result.should eql(this_thing)" but I can't write any mocks/stubs/should_receives in the middle because at every step, I just honestly have no idea how it should work!! So I throw in real models and try to make it as real as possible, rather than as "pure" as possible. It's not until after I get things working that I even know what the solution should remotely look like. This is due to my inexperience that I have to hack around a lot before I figure out how to make things work. Unfortunately, I know this means I write code that is more complicated than it should be, but if I can't figure out a better way, I have to write something that still works! So while I have a lot of the knowledge behind the theory of good BDD practice, I can't always implement it even when I want to. My Ruby / RoR inexperience is what holds me back the most in that department. It's just something I have to cultivate really. Until then I'm happy with my green specs with excellent coverage that slam the database like crazy and take a long time and have few mocks/stubs/ should_receives. Glenn On Feb 27, 2008, at 10:45 PM, Kero wrote: >>> I also had to go into specs on a project I'm not working on, and >>> found >>> an unholy hive of database-accessing specs. It's disheartening. >>> Basically, it's cargo cult development practices - using the "best >>> practice" without actually understanding it. >> >> This is a really tough problem. The whole motivation for BDD was >> "people don't get TDD, so let's come up with some new ways to frame >> it >> so people get it." Now people don't get the new frame. In that >> respect >> we've made things twice as bad. > > What did you expect? Honestly? > You need to show people the Right way, otherwise they're unlikely to > figure > it out by themselves. But as the fortune cookies go: > "To make the right decision, one needs experience. > To gain experience, one needs to make the wrong decision." > > It is easier for me to explain this from the point of view of aikido: > I've been shown the right moves thousands of times. I can not even see > what sensei does, let alone reproduce it. I can not perceive the > balance, > the timing, the acceptance of an attacker and the reflection of his/ > her > energy to -ultimately- unbalance. How could I learn by trying even > tens > or hundreds of thousands of time? > After seven years, I'm still a puny beginner. And I need other people > to show me my mistakes. Again, again and again. > > To the original poster: yes, teach BDD. > Make sure they accept you as a teacher, > then teach, small steps at a time, by showing what is wrong. > when they figure out a solution by themselves, encourage them, accept > that solution (use it yourself). When they don't figure it out by > themselves (likely enough), show how you would do it. > And be prepared to repeat yourself. > > HtH, > Kero. > _______________________________________________ > rspec-users mailing list > rspec-users@rubyforge.org > http://rubyforge.org/mailman/listinfo/rspec-users _______________________________________________ rspec-users mailing list rspec-users@rubyforge.org http://rubyforge.org/mailman/listinfo/rspec-users
