[rspec-users] bad specs better than none?

[Glenn Ford]

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.
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