For a new application I want to start dabbling in BDD and I’m trying to decide between using RSpec or Thoughtbot’s Shoulda. I like the macros that Shoulda uses, and the fact that it doesn’t seem to reinvent the way Ruby/Rails does testing, but simply provides an add-on. On the other hand, the macros seem like a bit too much “magic” instead of being explicit about what you’re testing (however I know from dabbling that it’s annoying to write a dozen “should be invalid without xxx” two-liners on a model). To be honest I find writing specifications/tests for models to be trivially and almost boringly easy, but I find writing them for controllers to be insanely difficult because I’m never sure exactly what I should be testing or how to write it.
I’m iffy on the subject of mocking and stubbing since I think they give you false assumptions (since you can just tell it to think it has whatever data you need or to pretend that Method X was called) and I know that RSpec makes heavy use of both of them. I like the documentation that RSPec produces but I’m creating an application for sale, not to give to a client so the pretty documentation isn’t that useful. I like Cucumber but it seems like overkill (and yes I know it can be used with Shoulda).
At this point is the Rails community in favor of RSpec or Shoulda?
The rails community is in favor of both RSpec and Shoulda. It depends of the developer.
If you prefer Shoulda, use it.
If you prefer RSpec, use it 😉
They’re both different library with a similar goal. It doesn’t mean every developer has to be for or against it. It only means that you can use either of them.
It’s up to you to make your choice depending of your preferences (and the other developers you’re working with).