Fit for Developing Software : Framework for Integrated Tests

Description:

The Fit open source testing framework brings unprecedented agility to the entire development process. Fit for Developing Software shows you how to use Fit to clarify business rules, express them with concrete examples, and organize the examples into test tables that drive testing throughout the software lifecycle. Using a realistic case study, Rick Mugridge and Ward Cunningham--the creator of Fit--introduce each of Fit's underlying concepts and techniques, and explain how you can put Fit to work incrementally, with the lowest possible risk. Highlights include

• Integrating Fit into your development processes
• Using Fit to promote effective communication between businesspeople, testers, and developers
• Expressing business rules that define calculations, decisions, and business processes
• Connecting Fit tables to the system with "fixtures" that check whether tests are actually satisfied
• Constructing tests for code evolution, restructuring, and other changes to legacy systems
• Managing the quality and evolution of tests
• A companion Web site (http://fit.c2.com/) that offers additional resources and source code

 

Table of Contents:

Foreword.

Preface.

Acknowledgments.

About the Authors.

1. Introduction.

    The Need for Fit

    The Value of Fit Tables

    Fit and Business Roles

    Organization of the Book

    The Book's Use of Color

I. INTRODUCING FIT TABLES.

2. Communicating with Tables.

    Fit Tables

    Tables for Communicating

    Tables for Testing

    Tables, Fixtures, and a System Under Test

    Reading Fit Tables

3. Testing Calculations with ColumnFixture Tables.

    Calculating Discount

    Reports: Traffic Lights

    Calculating Credit

    Selecting a Phone Number

    Summary

    Exercises

4. Testing Business Processes with ActionFixture Tables.

    Buying Items

    Actions on a Chat Server

    Summary

    Exercises

5. Testing Lists with RowFixture Tables.

    Testing Lists Whose Order Is Unimportant

    Testing Lists Whose Order Is Important

    Summary

    Exercises

6. Testing with Sequences of Tables.

    Chat Room Changes

    Discount Group Changes

    Summary

    Exercises

7. Creating Tables and Running Fit.

    Using Spreadsheets for Tests

    Organizing Tests in Test Suites

    Using HTML for Tests

    Summary

    Exercises

8. Using FitNesse.

    Introduction

    Getting Started

    Organizing Tests with Subwikis

    Test Suites

    Ranges of Values

    Other Features

    Summary

    Exercises

9. Expecting Errors.

    Expected Errors with Calculations

    Expected Errors with Actions

    Summary

10. FitLibrary Tables.

    Flow-Style Actions with DoFixture

    Expected Errors with DoFixture

    Actions on Domain Objects with DoFixture

    Setup

    CalculateFixture Tables

    Ordered List Tables

    Testing Parts of a List

    Summary

    Exercises

11. A Variety of Tables.

    Business Forms

    Testing Associations

    Two-Dimensional Images

    Summary

    Exercises

II. DEVELOPING TABLES FOR RENTAPARTYSOFTWARE.

12. Introducing Fit at RentAPartySoftware.

    RentAPartySoftware

    Development Issues

    An Initial Plan

    The Cast

    The Rest of This Part

    Summary

    Exercises

13. Getting Started: Emily and Don's First Table.

    Introduction

    Choosing Where to Start

    The Business Rule

    Starting Simple

    Adding the Grace Period

    Adding High-Demand Items

    Reports

    Seth's Return

    Summary

    Exercises

14. Testing a Business Process: Cash Rentals.

    Introduction

    Cash Rentals

    Split and Restructure

    Which Client

    Summary

    Exercises

15. Tests Involving the Date and Time.

    Introduction

    Charging a Deposit

    Dates

    Business Transactions

    Sad Paths

    Reports

    Summary

    Exercises

16. Transforming Workflow Tests into Calculation Tests.

    Introduction

    Testing Calculations Instead

    Using Durations

    Reports

    Summary

    Exercises

17. Story Test-Driven Development with Fit.

    Introduction

    The Stories

    The First Storytests

    The Planning Game

    Adding to the Storytests

    Progress During the Iteration

    Exploratory Testing at Iteration End

    Summary

    Exercises

18. Designing and Refactoring Tests to Communicate Ideas.

    Principles of Test Design

    Fit Tests for Business Rules

    Workflow Tests

    Calculation Tests

    List Tests

    Tests and Change

    Automation of Tests

    Summary

19. Closing for Nonprogrammers.

    The Value of Fit Tables

    Getting Fit at RentAPartySoftware

III. INTRODUCING FIT FIXTURES.

20. Connecting Tables and Applications.

    Writing Fixtures

    Fixtures and Traffic Lights

21. Column Fixtures.

    Fixture CalculateDiscount

    Extending Credit

    Selecting a Phone Number

    ColumnFixture in General

    Summary

    Exercises

22. Action Fixtures.

    Buying Items

    Changing State of Chat Room

    ActionFixture in General

    Summary

    Exercises

23. List Fixtures.

    Testing Unordered Lists

    Testing Ordered Lists

    Testing a List with Parameters

    Summary

    Exercises

24. Fixtures for Sequences of Tables.

    Chat Room Fixtures

    Discount Group Fixtures

    Summary

    Exercises

25. Using Other Values in Tables.

    Standard Values

    Values of Money

    Values in FitNesse and the Flow Fixtures

    Summary

    Exercises

26. Installing and Running Fit.

    Installing Fit and FitLibrary

    Running Fit on Folders

    Running Fit on HTML Files

    Running Tests During the Build

    Other Ways to Run Tests

    Summary

27. Installing FitNesse.

    Installation

    Locating the Code

    Larger-Scale Use with Virtual Wiki

    Debugging FitNesse Tests

    Summary

    Exercises

28. FitLibrary Fixtures.

    Flow-Style Actions with DoFixture

    DoFixtures as Adapters

    Using SetFixture

    Expected Errors with DoFixture

    Actions on Domain Objects with DoFixture

    DoFixture in General

    Setup

    CalculateFixture Tables

    Ordered-List Tables

    Testing Parts of a List

    Using Other Values in Flow Tables

    Summary

    Exercises

29. Custom Table Fixtures.

    Business Forms

    Testing Associations

    Two-Dimensional Images

    Summary

IV. DEVELOPING FIXTURES FOR RENTAPARTYSOFTWARE.

30. Fixtures and Adapting the Application.

    Introduction

    The Programmers' Perspective

    System Architecture

    Test Infecting for Improvements

    The Rest of This Part

31. Emily's First Fixture.

    The Table

    Developing the Fixture

    Summary

    Exercises

32. Fixtures Testing Through the User Interface.

    Introduction

    Spike

    The Fixtures

    The Adapter

    Showing Others

    Summary

33. Restructuring the System for Testing.

    Test Infecting

    Slow Tests

    Setup

    Barriers to Testing

    Transactions

    Transaction Fixture

    Split Domain and Data Source Layers

    Reduce Interdependencies

    Summary

34. Mocks and Clocks.

    Introduction

    Changing the Date

    Time-Related Object Interactions

    Date Formatting

    Changing the Application in Small Steps

    Summary

35. Running Calculation Tests Indirectly.

    Testing Directly

    Testing Indirectly

    Summary

36. Closing for Programmers at RPS.

    The Value of Fit Tables

    Getting Fit at RPS

V. CUSTOM DEVELOPMENT.

37. The Architecture of Fit.

    Running Fit

    Parse Tree

    doTable()

    Counts in Class Fixture

    The Fixture Subclasses

    TypeAdapter

    Summary

    Exercises

38. Developing Custom Fixtures.

    Using SetUpFixture

    SetUpFixture

    ImageFixture

    Summary

39. Custom Runners.

    Runners

    Calculator Runner

    Reading Tests from a Text File

    Reading Tests from a Spreadsheet

    Summary

40. Model-Based Test Generation.

    Symmetries: Operations That Cancel Each Other

    Generate a Simple Sequence

    Generate an Interleaved Sequence

    Summary

    Exercises

VI. APPENDICES.

Appendix A: Background Material.

    Testing

    Agile Software Development

    Ubiquitous Language

Appendix B: Book Resources Web Site.

Appendix C: Fit and Other Programming Languages.

    Table Portability

    Other Programming Languages

Bibliography.

Index.

Preface

Fitness, agility and balance apply as much to software development as they do to athletic activities.

We can admire the movements of a highly skilled dancer, skier or athlete. Gracefulness comes from wasting no energy on unnecessary tension or balance recovery, so that effort can be focused exactly where it is needed, exactly when it is needed. The expert is continuously making small adjustments to stay aligned and in balance. Their agile responses to unexpected changes distinguish the expert from the ordinary, as their rebalancing adjustments are fluid and subtle--and go unnoticed by nonexperts.

Injury, pain, distractions and poor concentration can wreck balance, reducing the expert's ability to respond well in a focused way. Much more effort is required to perform even at a substandard level.

A high degree of fitness and practice is needed in order to build the required concentration, balance, agility and focused power. This, inevitably, is a process of refinement over time, with attention given to more subtle aspects of risk assessment and response as expertise increases.

The achievements of athletes have continued to improve over time, sometimes through changes that break assumptions about the activity or how best to train. Big changes are often met with skepticism, but will slowly become accepted as the norm as they prove their worth.

When we look at the efforts of most software developers we see a lot of energy being wasted. In the rush to get software completed, there is often little time to reflect on how to improve the way we do things, how to get that special fitness, balance and agility that allow us to be graceful in our intellectual efforts in order to achieve inspired results--with less effort.

We get unbalanced when we have to fix old bugs, losing flow. We often have to speculate about what's needed, and feedback is too slow. Our software becomes less than elegant and is hard to change, with tensions and stresses building up in us and in our software.

This book is intended to help improve your fitness and agility in two areas of software development where we can make huge improvements to current practice. First, how to improve communication between the people who need the software and the people who develop it. We show how to express the business rules that are at the heart of a software solution. Second, how to use automated testing to provide immediate and effective feedback so we can maintain balance and agility, and avoid "injury".

The book also questions some common assumptions about the way in which software is developed. But we don't expect that you'll make a big leap of faith; we start with current practice and show how you make small, yet effective improvements. Just like the dancer and the athlete, you will have to do more than simply read about how to do this. It is also necessary to practice.

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Foreword

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