Disclaimer: The following are observations by a relatively new user
(couple of weeks) of RSpec and not intended as RSpec trollbait.
Also, forgive me if similar topics have been discussed elsewhere on
the mailing list. I at least did the due diligence of a quick search.
That said...
I've been positively thrilled with RSpec for use outside of Rails.
It has been in my attempts to use it within Rails that I have begun
to question whether and how it can buy me much more than Test::Unit.
I recently began using RSpec to drive the design, in BDD fashion, of
a Rails app. Believing that behavior is best measured from the
user's experience, I started by writing a View spec. I considered
this a top-down approach. Were I still using Test::Unit, I likely
would have started in the same place that I usually do out of habit:
the Model.
However, the more googling that I've done, the more that I noticed
that most RSpec articles, where they addressed Rails, were primarily
focused on the Model. I began to wonder, "are people using RSpec
much like people were using Test::Unit?" I've seen that some people
eschew View Specs. However, in lieu of that, how does one spec the
interface that should, in theory, drive the design of the application?
Ultimately, I'm left with similar perspective to Jordan's: View
specs will be brittle. They'll span multiple Behaviors as there will
be at least one per action -- leading me to wonder if BDD, or at
least RSpec, is necessarily the best way to try to spec the View.
However, Controllers and Models seem as though they would work
reasonably well.
Can anyone recommend some approaches for tackling BDD starting from
the View down?
Thanks,
Evan
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