44 posts tagged with "BDD"

It's been 11 years since Dan introduced BDD to me while we were working together at ThoughtWorks, and 9 years since he published the article Introducing BDD.

BDD has evolved a lot in the past decade. Dan's article is still a great read, but when I visit organisations who try to adopt BDD I see a lot of recurring problems. Many people still think BDD is a tool. Many people still think it's about testing. BDD is still poorly understood and frequently misappropriated.

Moreover, we know a lot more about what works and what doesn't work a decade later.

It's time to redefine what BDD is.

Is your team using Cucumber like this?

Fantastic! I hope you're reaping some benefits from that. But you can do better!

According to E. F. Schumacher, there are only two kinds of problems in the world:

• Divergent problems
• Convergent problems

Choosing a new car is a convergent problem. You only need one new car. There are lots of options, and the solution is to whittle down those options until you've found one that meets your needs. Once you're there, problem solved.

If you've never bough a car before, you'll need to research all the different options available. You might also want to consider alternative modes of transport - why do you even need a car? Could you make do with a bicycle or public transport? This is an example of divergent thinking.

Cucumber reached a million downloads in the first three years and 5 million downloads 3 years later. I'm happy to have created such a popular tool, but saddened to see how it's misused and misunderstood.

If you think Cucumber is a testing tool, please read on, because you are wrong.

Cucumber was born out of the frustration with ambiguous requirements and misunderstandings between the people who order the software and those who deliver it.