[rspec-users] error paths: a new scenerio or test in story runner?

[aidy lewis]

Hi David,
On 28/08/2008, David Chelimsky <dchelimsky at gmail.com> wrote:
> On Thu, Aug 28, 2008 at 8:22 AM, aidy lewis <aidy.lewis at googlemail.com> wrote:
>  > Hi,
>  >
>  > I think the scenario based way of defining acceptance tests is akin to
>  > scenarios in use-cases.
>  >
>  > In use-cases we can have a happy path with extends for error conditions etc.
>  >
>  > Should I create extra scenarios for my error conditions (making my
>  > tests less understandable) or should I create a new error path story
>  > with copied over scenarios
>
>
> This was something that was bugging me for a while. I used to work w/
>  Fitnesse quite a bit. If you're not familiar, check out
>  http://fitnesse.org. FIT (the underlying acceptance test framework in
>  FitNesse) is fantastic for tabular data, but it wasn't really great at
>  scenario/flow-oriented structure. Rick Mugridge's DoFixture opened the
>  door to some great improvements, and it was the best we had so far at
>  that point, but it still felt like the square peg/round hole problem
>  to me.

Users see and convey things in a natural flow not in a tabular format:
Bill payments are good in a horizontal and vertical structure. For UI
testing FIT gets messy.


>  But then I ran into the same question you're asking now. In the end,
>  FIT tables are a great solution for tabular data (which is a good
>  solution for expressing numerous edge cases) and Story Runner is a
>  great solution for flow structures. So I had this idea that we should
>  have a way of expressing tabular data in the context of the Story
>  Runner.

   In my opinion, this will effect the linguistics of the Story
Runner; but I offer no   alternative.
>
>  When I discussed this w/ Aslak, it turns out that he had been thinking
>  about the same problem, so we had a little brainstorming session and
>  arrived at a general direction. Then he actually implemented it in
>  Cucumber, and it's awesome.
>
>  That said, I'd recommend taking a look at Cucumber. Let us know what you think.

   I am currently studying it.

  Aidy