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

by Richard Lawrence, Paul Rayner

Master BDD to deliver higher-value software more quickly

To develop high-value products quickly, software development teams need better ways to collaborate. Agile methods like Scrum and Kanban are helpful, but they’re not enough. Teams need better ways to work inside each sprint or work item. Behavior-driven development (BDD) adds just enough structure for product experts, testers, and developers to collaborate more effectively.

Drawing on extensive experience helping teams adopt BDD, Richard Lawrence and Paul Rayner show how to explore changes in system behavior with examples through conversations, how to capture your examples in expressive language, and how to flow the results into effective automated testing with Cucumber. Where most BDD resources focus on test automation, this guide goes deep into how BDD changes team collaboration and what that collaboration looks like day to day. Concrete examples and practical advice will prepare you to succeed with BDD, whatever your context or role.

·         Learn how to collaborate better by using concrete examples of system behavior

·         Identify your project’s meaningful increment of value so you’re always working on something important

·         Begin experimenting with BDD slowly and at low risk

·         Move smoothly from informal examples to automated tests in Cucumber

·         Use BDD to deliver more frequently with greater visibility

·         Make Cucumber scenarios more expressive to ensure you’re building the right thing

·         Grow a Cucumber suite that acts as high-value living documentation

·         Sustainably work with complex scenario data

·         Get beyond the “mini-waterfalls” that often arise on Scrum teams 

208 pages, Kindle Edition

First published October 24, 2013

About the author

Spiritual teacher and Executive Secretary of The Aetherius Society in Europe.

Lawrence met Aetherius founder George King in 1972 and began studying yoga with King as his master.

In 1978 he began working full time for the Aetherius society.

Lawrence has appeared on diverse television shows about UFOS.

Reviews

[German Tebiev]

Несмотря на наличие в заголовке упоминания Cucumber'а, эта книга проходится по нему достаточно поверхностно. Более того, эта книга обладает смелостью выстроиться вокруг ключевого в разработке — человеческих взаимоотношений. На протяжении чуть более, чем 200-т страниц мы наблюдаем описание взаимодействия людей, которые пытаются внедрить у себя BDD и взаимодействуют для этого со стейкхолдерами. Они встречаются с различными проблемами и решают их.

[Pawel Cyzman · Rating 4 out of 5]

"Traditional documentation is “dead” in the sense that there’s no direct connection to the product itself and it can get out of date quickly". Unfortunately there is a lot of truth in this statement. "Behavior-Driven Development with Cucumber: Better Collaboration for Better Software" is quite new book about creating living documentation. I think it's worth knowing the idea itself, even if we do not use Cucumber as a tool at work.