On Wed, Oct 21, 2009 at 1:12 PM, Carl Graff <cagr...@cox.net> wrote: > > In truth, due to my inexperience and confusion, mocks seem to slow my > development more than just creating real objects. But since there has been > so much effort to put these into testing frameworks, I think it must be > important to try and learn when it is appropriate to use them.
That is a fallacious line of reasoning. A lot of effort has also gone into American football, every Michael Bay movie, and Windows Vista. QED. My suggestion on _any_ technology is not to use it in serious practice unless you have a good idea _why_ you're using it and what it can offer you. "I want to play with this and determine what the fuss is" can be a good reason -- provided you have the leisure to do so -- but "All the hotshot programmers say it's important" is not sufficient and _durable_ reason in itself. If you don't know _why_ they say it, find out. If you're not sure you grok it, try it both ways, but be objective about the results. Don't hold onto a practice blindly. If your testing so far seems to be going just fine without mocks and you haven't hit any snags, great. Maybe you're not hitting use cases where they're really helpful. Maybe you've figured out how to address the same problems in other ways. Heck, maybe everyone else is _wrong_ about them. (This does in fact happen in software culture, though it's easy to overestimate the likelihood.) Do what works, as long as it works. When it *stops* working for you, or you advance enough in your own proficiency that things you hadn't thought about before start to seem questionable or annoying, be prepared to adapt and to try things. Maybe at that point, mocks will be just what you need. -- 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
