Clients writing Cucumber stories? (Ruby) | Hacker News Reader

Clients writing Cucumber stories? (Ruby)

jeffkreeftmeijer.com

I like the workflow Jeff describes in his article. They keep writing user stories with their clients. I imagine that those stories are written in plain english but in a brief, informal, easy-to-understand style. Much more useful than Cucumber features as communication token, I think.

In my experience, Cucumber features are less useful as user stories than regular user stories and harder to maintain as acceptance tests than regular acceptance tests. Some people may see value in turning user stories into acceptance tests and keep them in sync during all the lifetime of a project. But 80% of value is just in turning every user story into an acceptance test. Jeff's workflow does exactly that, but without the additional effort that maintaining Cucumber features involves.

Steak does sound good. It's a lot harder to look at than cucumber, but it is self-contained and simple.

http://github.com/cavalle/steak

Talking about steak makes me hungry.

For a ruby programmer, I dare say that ruby code is easier to look at than English pseudo-code...

I dev in Ruby also, but the features, stories, and scenarios in Cucumber can read fairly well, even if the step definitions make it tougher than it would appear to be.

Agreed that Steak is simpler overall. Cucumber could have used the time spent supporting LOLZ on something more useful:

  OH HAI: STUFFING

    MISHUN: CUCUMBR

      I CAN HAZ IN TEH BEGINNIN 3 CUCUMBRZ

      WEN I EAT 2 CUCUMBRZ

      DEN I HAZ 2 CUCUMBERZ IN MAH BELLY

      AN IN TEH END 1 CUCUMBRZ KTHXBAI

step implementations:

  ICANHAZ /^IN TEH BEGINNIN (d+) CUCUMBRZ$/ do |n|

    @basket = Basket.new(n.to_i)

  end

  WEN /^I EAT (d+) CUCUMBRZ$/ do |n|

    @belly = Belly.new

    @belly.eat(@basket.take(n.to_i))

  end

  DEN /^I HAZ (d+) CUCUMBERZ IN MAH BELLY$/ do |n|

   @belly.cukes.should == n.to_i

  end

  DEN /^IN TEH END (d+) CUCUMBRZ KTHXBAI$/ do |n|

   @basket.cukes.should == n.to_i

  end

(from http://www.engineyard.com/blog/2009/cucumber-introduction/ )

Another great article Jeff.

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