On Wed, Mar 4, 2009 at 4:54 AM, Bira <u.alber...@gmail.com> wrote: > Hello! > > I've been lurking in the list a while, and now I would like to ask you > a somewhat "noobish" question... This is the first time I've run > across this particular problem, so I'm not sure what to do. I'm sure > this is so common that's in a textbook somewhere, but what is the best > way to write specs for code that calls out to an external server? > > I've just started working on a project that will use AMQP messaging > (and the "amqp" gem), and most of the code I've written so far is all > about talking to a messaging server. The only alternatives I saw for > writing specs were starting said server, and mocking/stubbing out all > the code that would talk to it. I went witht he second one, but I feel > it's a fragile approach that won't actually allow me to find bugs, > since everything is mocked out. What is the best way to do this?
I'm not familiar w/ amqp in particular, but one "good" approach is to use mock objects to evolve a protocol for this service in the language of your app, and then write an adapter for amqp with a few system level tests in place to verify happy paths. This approach does a few good things. * Keeps you focused on the business domain while writing the business objects, because you're not sidetracked by the details of messaging. * Keeps the suite of specs running fast * Makes it easy to choose a different messaging API later, because all of the code that depends directly on that API lives in the adapter. HTH, David > > -- > Bira > http://compexplicita.wordpress.com > http://compexplicita.tumblr.com > _______________________________________________ > 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
