Asp Forum - Good books on TDD

Rasmus Nielsen

6/12/2009 3:03:00 PM

Generally, I really love reading books. I love reading *good* books even
more. It gives me this pleasant feeling of learning something new while
using my time optimally.

Therefore I spend quite some time finding the good books, and I really
hope it is OK for me bother you clever guys with this question.

Being five years late or so, I've just recently touched the surface of
TDD through online articles on the subject.

I have been using the built-in test framework in Rails a little, and now
I want to learn more about the basic theories behind driven development
as well as the best practices.

What books would you recommend for a newbie in TDD?

Thanks in advance.
- Rasmus / rrn.dk
--
Posted via http://www.ruby-....

6 Answers

Gregory Brown

6/12/2009 3:13:00 PM

On Fri, Jun 12, 2009 at 11:02 AM, Rasmus
Nielsen<rasmusrnielsen@gmail.com> wrote:

> I have been using the built-in test framework in Rails a little, and now
> I want to learn more about the basic theories behind driven development
> as well as the best practices.

Sorry for the direct plug, but I wrote something specifically for this purpose.

My upcoming book "Ruby Best Practices" has a fairly comprehensive,
somewhat framework-agnostic overview of testing principles and
practices.
http://oreilly.com/catalog/9780596523008/...

Should be printed within the next week or so. It's already at the
printers, and the full PDF is available now.

If you want a whole book on testing though, and are interested in
BDD/RSpec, you might want to check out the RSpec book, currently in
beta:
http://www.pragprog.com/titles/achbd/the-...

I've not read it, but its nice to see a whole book dedicated to testing...

-greg

Gregory Brown

6/12/2009 3:16:00 PM

On Fri, Jun 12, 2009 at 11:13 AM, Gregory
Brown<gregory.t.brown@gmail.com> wrote:
> On Fri, Jun 12, 2009 at 11:02 AM, Rasmus
> Nielsen<rasmusrnielsen@gmail.com> wrote:
>
>> I have been using the built-in test framework in Rails a little, and now
>> I want to learn more about the basic theories behind driven development
>> as well as the best practices.
>
> Sorry for the direct plug, but I wrote something specifically for this purpose.
>
> My upcoming book "Ruby Best Practices" has a fairly comprehensive,
> somewhat framework-agnostic overview of testing principles and
> practices.

I didn't specify how much content there was... in addition to using
tests occasionally throughout the book, the first chapter is dedicated
to TDD, and is about 30 pages long.

Phlip

6/12/2009 4:36:00 PM

Rasmus Nielsen wrote:

> Generally, I really love reading books. I love reading *good* books even
> more. It gives me this pleasant feeling of learning something new while
> using my time optimally.
>
> Therefore I spend quite some time finding the good books, and I really
> hope it is OK for me bother you clever guys with this question.
>
> Being five years late or so, I've just recently touched the surface of
> TDD through online articles on the subject.
>
> I have been using the built-in test framework in Rails a little, and now
> I want to learn more about the basic theories behind driven development
> as well as the best practices.
>
> What books would you recommend for a newbie in TDD?

/Test Driven Development/ by Kent Beck
/Test Driven Development/ by Dave Astels

Unfortunately there are no Ruby-specific TDD books. All the good Rails books
mention it in-passim...

--
Phlip

Rick DeNatale

6/12/2009 5:42:00 PM

On Fri, Jun 12, 2009 at 12:40 PM, Phlip<phlip2005@gmail.com> wrote:
> Rasmus Nielsen wrote:

>> What books would you recommend for a newbie in TDD?
>
> /Test Driven Development/ by Kent Beck
> /Test Driven Development/ by Dave Astels
>
> Unfortunately there are no Ruby-specific TDD books. All the good Rails books
> mention it in-passim...

Well, the PragProg's RSpec book, which is available in Beta form now,
does a VERY good job IMHO of teaching TDD/BDD in a Ruby context.

Also Noel Rappin's "Rails Test Prescriptions"
http://www.railsprescrip... is also in preparation and
available as an early release PDF. Although it starts from a
traditional tests afterwards usage of Test::Unit, it's evolving to
cover TDD/BDD more.

--
Rick DeNatale

Blog: http://talklikeaduck.denh...
Twitter: http://twitter.com/Ri...
WWR: http://www.workingwithrails.com/person/9021-ric...
LinkedIn: http://www.linkedin.com/in/ri...

Chrononaut

6/12/2009 7:09:00 PM

> What books would you recommend for a newbie in TDD?

Agile Software Development [1] by Robert C. Martin is an excellent
book that has thought me a lot about the TDD mindset (and indeed
development in general). Not Ruby specific, but the code isn't the
interesting part anyway. (There are Java and C++ examples, should be
pretty easy to follow even if you don't know those languages.)

[1]
http://www.amazon.com/Software-Development-Principles-Patterns-Practices/dp/0135974445/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1244833560&...

Rasmus Nielsen

6/13/2009 10:25:00 PM

Gregory Brown wrote:
> Sorry for the direct plug, but I wrote something specifically for this
> purpose.
>
> My upcoming book "Ruby Best Practices" has a fairly comprehensive,
> somewhat framework-agnostic overview of testing principles and
> practices.
> http://oreilly.com/catalog/9780596523008/...

No problem. Your book sounds very interesting. I'll definitely consider
picking up a copy!

And thank you all for your recommendations.
--
Posted via http://www.ruby-....

comp.lang.ruby

Good books on TDD

Rasmus Nielsen

Gregory Brown

Gregory Brown

Phlip

Rick DeNatale

Chrononaut

Rasmus Nielsen

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