Behavior-Driven Development with Cucumber: Better Collaboration for Better Software

by Richard Lawrence, Paul Rayner

Overview

Agile software development teams are seeking better ways to create business-facing automated tests that support the development of the right product. Cucumber is rapidly becoming the most popular tool for accomplishing this objective – but, until now, no book has covered Behavior-Driven Development (BDD) practices and tools in sufficient depth. Teams have been forced to keep reinventing the wheel, or else to hire one of a handful of consultants at great expense. Behavior-Driven Development with Cucumber fills that gap.

Richard Lawrence and Paul Rayner begin by illuminating ATDD’s value, and showing how it can help you produce better software with less pain. Next, they present a complete BDD/Cucumber reference and tutorial that provides a common language for software customers and team members alike. Lawrence and Rayner thoroughly explain the role of each team member and stakeholder, with a particularly insightful emphasis on non-developers. Next, they show how to automate functional tests for web, console, native client, legacy, and other applications on the Ruby, Java, and .NET. platforms. To complement the Web’s existing Ruby-oriented Cucumber resources, the authors provide even more Java (Cuke4Duke) and C# (Cuke4Nuke) examples.

Throughout, you’ll find concrete examples and hands-on exercises based on the authors’ extensive experience teaching BDD to software professionals and helping software organisations successfully implement BDD strategies.

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Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780132748513
Publisher:	Pearson Education
Publication date:	05/20/2019
Sold by:	Barnes & Noble
Format:	eBook
Pages:	336
File size:	6 MB
Age Range:	18 Years

About the Author

Richard Lawrence is co-owner of the consulting firm Agile For All. He trains and coaches people to collaborate more effectively with other people to solve complex, meaningful problems. He draws on a diverse background in software development, engineering, anthropology, and political science.

Richard was an early adopter of behavior-driven development and led the development of the first .NET version of Cucumber, Cuke4Nuke. He is a popular speaker at conferences on BDD and Agile software development.

Paul Rayner co-founded and co-leads DDD Denver. He regularly speaks at local user groups and at regional and international conferences. If you are looking for an expert hands-on team coach and design mentor in domain-driven design (DDD), BDD with Cucumber, or lean/agile processes, Paul is available for consulting and training through his company, Virtual Genius LLC. 

Table of Contents

 Chapter 1: Focusing on Value

When Scrum Isn’t Enough

Finding a High-Value Feature to Start With

Before You Start with Cucumber

    Finding the First MMF

    Slicing an MMF into User Stories

Summary

Reference

Chapter 2: Exploring with Examples

BDD Is a Cooperative Game

    BDD Is a Whole Team Thing

    Allow Time and Space to Learn

    Flesh Out the Happy Path First

    Use Real Examples

    Example Mapping Gives the Discussion Structure

    Optimizing for Discovery

Addressing Some Concerns

    Treat Resistance as a Resource

Playing the BDD Game

    Opening

    Exploring

    Closing

Summary

References

Chapter 3: Formalizing Examples into Scenarios

Moving from Examples to Scenarios

    Feature Files as Collaboration Points

    BDD Is Iterative, Not Linear

    Finding the Meaningful Variations

    Gherkin: A Language for Expressive Scenarios

Summary

Resources

Chapter 4: Automating Examples

The Test Automation Stack

Adjusting to Working Test-First

Annotating Element Names in Mockups

How Does User Experience Design Fit In to This?

Did They Really Just Hard Code Those Results?

Anatomy of a Step Definition

Simple Cucumber Expressions

Regular Expressions

    Anchors

    Wildcards and Quantifiers

    Capturing and Not Capturing

    Just Enough

Custom Cucumber Expressions Parameter Types

Beyond Ruby

Slow Is Normal (at First)

Choose Cucumber Based on Audience, Not Scope

Summary

Chapter 5: Frequent Delivery and Visibility

How BDD Changes the Tester’s Role

Exploratory Testing

BDD and Automated Builds

Faster Stakeholder Feedback

How Getting to Done More Often Changes All Sorts of Things

Frequent Visibility and Legacy Systems

Documentation: Integrated and Living

Avoiding Mini-Waterfalls and Making the Change Stick

Summary

References

Chapter 6: Making Scenarios More Expressive

Feedback About Scenarios

How to Make Your Scenarios More Expressive

    Finding the Right Level of Abstraction

    Including the Appropriate Details

    Expressive Language in the Steps

    Refactoring Scenarios

    Good Scenario Titles

Summary

References

Chapter 7: Growing Living Documentation

What Is Living Documentation and Why Is It Better?

Cucumber Features and Other Documentation

Avoid Gherkin in User Story Descriptions

The Unexpected Relationship Between Cucumber Features and User Stories

    Stable Scenarios

Growing and Splitting Features

    Split When Backgrounds Diverge

    Split When a New Domain Concept Emerges

Secondary Organization Using Tags

Structure Is Emergent

Summary

Chapter 8: Succeeding with Scenario Data

Characteristics of Good Scenarios

    Independent

    Repeatable

    Researchable

    Realistic

    Robust

    Maintainable

    Fast

Sharing Data

    When to Share Data

    Raising the Level of Abstraction with Data Personas

Data Cleanup

Summary

Reference

Chapter 9: Conclusion

 

 

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