Future of RSpec Integration Testing

Testing RSpec
1

Greetings.

My team at work is trying to decide between Cucumber and RSpec
integration tests for all future integration-style testing. The team
is divided on this, so I thought I’d approach the community to see
what the future of RSpec integration tests are. I’ve heard a rumor
that they’re being removed, and RSpec 2 appears to be using Cucumber
for integration testing.

What’s the scoop here? Does the community have any recommendations on
the matter?

Thank you for your time,

James H.

2

On 29 Apr 2010, at 18:48, James H wrote:

the matter?
What exactly do you mean by integration testing? Do you mean those
things that the rails generators put in ./test/integration, or
something else?

cheers,
Matt

+447974 430184

3

On Apr 29, 2010, at 12:48 PM, James H wrote:

Greetings.

My team at work is trying to decide between Cucumber and RSpec
integration tests for all future integration-style testing. The team
is divided on this, so I thought I’d approach the community to see
what the future of RSpec integration tests are. I’ve heard a rumor
that they’re being removed

rspec-rails-2 (for rails-3) has request specs, which mix in behavior
from rails integration tests. So the rumor is incorrect, at least as it
pertains to rspec-rails.

That said, request specs and Cucumber can cover the same features and
functionality. It’s really a matter of team make-up and personal
preference.

HTH,
David

4

On Apr 30, 2010, at 9:36 AM, Steve K. wrote:

“Integration testing” is also known as “full-stack testing.”

This is true in the Rails world but it is far from a universal truth.
Before Rails came around, integration testing (testing the integration
between two or more non-trivial components) was actually a subset of
functional testing (testing the system from the perspective of a user).

I’ll venture a guess as to why Rails turned that around: functional
tests were part of the Rails testing infrastructure earlier on and when
a new form of testing was introduced that had a wider scope, it needed a
name, and “integration” seemed to fit the bill.

I think “full-stack” or “end-to-end” testing are much more descriptive
than “integration testing.”

5

“Integration testing” is also known as “full-stack testing.” Basically,
you’re not testing isolated parts of the system, but the system as a
whole.
Cucumber is integration testing. rspec with ‘integrate_views’ is
integration
testing.