On Fri, Aug 29, 2008 at 1:37 PM, Dan North <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > At the risk of being a bit controversial... > > 2008/8/24 David Chelimsky <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> > [...] >> >> Sadly, "spec" has just as much baggage, if not more, as "test" does. >> These days we're calling these things "code examples," (tongue >> pressing into cheek) so maybe we should change the name to >> rcodeexample?
I was really only joking. > Or rbehave? > > The rbehave.org domain is available (I registered it some time ago), and > rspec has naturally evolved from its original goal of code-level specs to > become a full-stack behaviour description framework. I think we're not at the point where we can really play with the name of the code-level framework. Changing rspec's name would impact a lot of people. Consider the following: * RubySpec uses MSpec, based on RSpec. * Ruby itself runs its build against RubySpec. * NetBeans supports RSpec. * TextMate's official bundle repo includes an RSpec bundle. * Numerous open source projects use rspec for code examples. * Including many rails plugins, so rails apps are depending on plugins that depend on rspec. I'm not saying it's something that should never happen. But we're in a time right now (IMO) where it's both too late and too early to do it. Too late because of wide usage and momentum. Too early because a) it's not deeply ingrained enough quite yet for users to accept the burden of the name change and b) we don't really have the team/infrastructure/support system to make it an easy transition. > Just a thought. > > With regard to the stories and features thing, I see a BDD-shaped story as > providing a context - and justification - for a feature: > > As a [stakeholder] > I want [a feature] > So that [I get some benefit] > > Before we started using this structure, a "story" would often just be the > middle line, so it wasn't immediately obvious who the stakeholder was or why > they wanted the feature, which in turn would often lead to over-work, > under-work or just plain wrong-work. Of course the word "story" has its own > baggage. In XP a story is "a placeholder/promise for a conversation", and as > such could just be a title scribbled on a card. I wrote the story article to > put this all in context - if you ask 5 agile folks what a story is, you will > likely get 6 answers. > > I agree that the feature is the interesting thing, and also that there may > be several stories about the same feature in different broad contexts. In > any event the scenarios provide the definition of "Done" for the feature, > which is kind of the whole point. So I guess I'm saying I'm ambivalent about > the story/feature distinction. I don't look at stories as work units as much > as a more formal description of (some aspect of) a feature. > > After speaking with Aslak - and some FDD folks I met at Agile 2008 - I can > fully agree with organising stories by feature. Stories? Do you mean scenarios? > In fact in Peter Coad's FDD > they have features within feature sets, within subject areas, which might > well map to stories within features within [not sure - subject areas? > themes? something broader anyway]. FDD features seem to be "thinner" than > what I understand Aslak's description of features to be. It seems that there is no word that is baggage-free. I think that trying to think of this in terms of FDD would just add more confusion. I do like Feature, in part, because it refers to the system. User Stories are about how a user uses the system, where as a Feature is about how the system responds to use. So Features are about system behaviour. Maybe we should just go back to where we started, and call these things (Stories/Features) ... ahem ... Behaviours. It's a thought. > One thing that makes me happy is that we seem to have consensus around the > word "scenario" - which is where the outside-in work really starts. Agreed. Stories and/or Features seem to be more about organization and communication. Scenarios drive code development. FWIW, David > > Cheers, > Dan > > _______________________________________________ > rspec-users mailing list > rspec-users@rubyforge.org > http://rubyforge.org/mailman/listinfo/rspec-users > _______________________________________________ rspec-users mailing list rspec-users@rubyforge.org http://rubyforge.org/mailman/listinfo/rspec-users
