Re: [boost] Interest in a Behavior Driven Development Framework

From: Dean Michael Berris (mikhailberis_at_[hidden])
Date: 2006-09-15 01:33:55

Hi Rene,

On 9/15/06, Rene Rivera <grafikrobot_at_[hidden]> wrote:
> Sorry, but I'm going to be rather uncharacteristically apolitically frank...
>

It's alright. :-)

> Dean Michael Berris wrote:
>  >
>  > I've attached the initial explorations (one header, and a test
>  > implementation). Comments and insights will be most appreciated. :)
>
> Yea... Looks as bad as I feared.
>

Unfortunately, the implementation might need some work (aesthetically,
or even code-wise). However, if the judgement is about the
"value(...).should.equal(...)", then I'd like to think it might be a
matter of preference. :-D

Maybe it might need getting used to... :-) Staring at a whole slew of
ASSERT_EQUAL or similar "un-englishlike" constructs along with the C++
constructs gets tiring at times -- much like beer, it's an acquired
taste and it gets boring at times. After all, BDD is an alternative or
a "language shift" to the traditional TDD approach of "Unit Testing".

> >> [OT bit follows]
> >>
> >
> > Very interesting indeed. I would think BDD will be very useful in
> > these situations, especially for the developers and even non-technical
> > customers (who feel comfortable with english anyway).
>
> It's a very sad day when people can again think that customers can
> program. After 25 years of programming this seems to be a recurring
> false pattern. Having done a stint in knowledge based reasoning AI
> development I can tell you that there's a very good reason for the term
> "expert". And for those not familiar with some of the AI aspects in
> this, unless you are willing to make non-programmers write in Esperanto,
> you'll be faced with natural language parsing nightmares.
>

Yeah... But using language that's closer to "natural language" or in
this case, English, makes the code/specification readable IMO. If not
for the possibility of programmatically generating programmatic
specifications (specification metaprogramming?) to even a considerably
readable implementation in C++, BDD is Yet Another Testing And
Software Engineering Paradigm.

:-)

-- 
Dean Michael C. Berris
C++ Software Architect
Orange and Bronze Software Labs, Ltd. Co.
web: http://software.orangeandbronze.com/
email: dean_at_[hidden]
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blogs: http://mikhailberis.blogspot.com http://3w-agility.blogspot.com
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