On Thu, Feb 19, 2009 at 9:55 AM, David Chelimsky <dchelim...@gmail.com> wrote: > On Wed, Feb 18, 2009 at 11:40 PM, Stephen Eley <sfe...@gmail.com> wrote: > > <deliberately_out_of_context_to_make_a_point> >> If your spec breaks because you changed a method call, you're not >> testing behavior any more. You're testing syntax. > </deliberately_out_of_context_to_make_a_point> > > We've got to stop making laws out of guidelines. This is a very > general statement about what is really a very specific situation, and > it is not in any way as black and white as this statement sounds. But > *somebody* is going to read this, not understand the context, and > think it's international law.
Doesn't it increase the probability that someone will read it and not understand the context when you deliberately take it out of context to make a point? >8-> Anyway, I wasn't declaring any laws. I didn't say "specs must never break when method calls change." That would be an impossible standard, since at some point *everything* comes down to a method call. I actually didn't express any imperatives at all. I will agree that "You're not testing behavior any more" is a bit of an overblown statement, since the line between 'behavior' and 'syntax' is highly subjective. Every test is really a test on both. I was expressing my own opinion on where I feel the line is drawn, but it was mostly in response to "You have to do *this*, right?" There's a lot of testing dogma out there. I'm starting to think everyone who gets vocal on the subject lapses into sounding dogmatic eventually...including, apparently, myself. To the extent that I sounded like I was trying to hand down the One True Way, I apologize and withdraw my fervor. -- Have Fun, Steve Eley (sfe...@gmail.com) ESCAPE POD - The Science Fiction Podcast Magazine http://www.escapepod.org _______________________________________________ rspec-users mailing list rspec-users@rubyforge.org http://rubyforge.org/mailman/listinfo/rspec-users
