Modelling roles and responsibilities

Testing RSpec
1

Hi,

reading “Growing Object-Oriented Software, guided by tests”, I came
across the distinction of class, role and responsibility.

While classes are classes and responsibilities could be mapped to public
methods, I wonder how to specify roles in my specs. Does anyone have
experiences with this?

cheers,

Nikolay

–
“It’s all part of my Can’t-Do approach to life.” Wally

2

On Dec 6, 2011, at 2:30 PM, Nikolay Sturm wrote:

Nikolay

https://www.relishapp.com/rspec/rspec-core/docs/example-groups/shared-examples

3
  • David C. [2011-12-07]:

https://www.relishapp.com/rspec/rspec-core/docs/example-groups/shared-examples

Sorry, but I don’t see how that helps. In my understanding, roles are a
set of related responsibilities. If responsibilities map roughly to
public methods, than a role should be a subset of a class’ API. I don’t
see where I should want to share example groups.

cheers,

Nikolay

–
“It’s all part of my Can’t-Do approach to life.” Wally

4

On Dec 7, 2011, at 1:57 AM, Nikolay Sturm wrote:

Nikolay

https://www.relishapp.com/rspec/rspec-core/docs/example-groups/shared-examples

Sorry, but I don’t see how that helps. In my understanding, roles are a
set of related responsibilities. If responsibilities map roughly to
public methods, than a role should be a subset of a class’ API. I don’t
see where I should want to share example groups.

You can use shared example groups to test a subset of a class’s API.

Pat

5
  • David C. [2011-12-07]:

Nikolay - just because they’re shareable doesn’t mean they have to be
shared :slight_smile: As Pat suggests, you can use them to specify a subset of a
single object’s API. That said, one goal of thinking of roles is code
that is easy to extend thanks to polymorphism. You might have onlly
one class that satisfies a role now, but you might add another later.
Shared examples allow you to just drop in a spec for that part of the
new object’s responsibilities.

Ah great, the missing pieces! I hadn’t thought about polymorphism and
roles. This finally makes sense. :slight_smile:

cheers everyone,

Nikolay

–
“It’s all part of my Can’t-Do approach to life.” Wally

6

On Dec 7, 2011, at 4:07 AM, Pat M. wrote:

cheers,
You can use shared example groups to test a subset of a class’s API.
Nikolay - just because they’re shareable doesn’t mean they have to be
shared :slight_smile: As Pat suggests, you can use them to specify a subset of a
single object’s API. That said, one goal of thinking of roles is code
that is easy to extend thanks to polymorphism. You might have onlly one
class that satisfies a role now, but you might add another later. Shared
examples allow you to just drop in a spec for that part of the new
object’s responsibilities.

I blogged about this a while back:
http://blog.davidchelimsky.net/2010/11/07/specifying-mixins-with-shared-example-groups-in-rspec-2/

  • the focus of that entry is on Modules, but you could just as easily
    think in terms of roles (since a Module often represents a role). The
    stuff about spec’ing the what happens when you include the module
    doesn’t really apply, but the stuff about spec’ing similar behavior
    across different objects does.

HTH,
David