The development process known as “behaviour driven development” (BDD) places a strong emphasis on the software’s ability to satisfy business needs.
Behaviour driven development (BDD) methodology places a strong emphasis on the software’s ability to satisfy business requirements. BDD is an evolution of test-driven development (TDD), which employs a fixed syntax and a domain-specific language to create tests.
Behavior-driven development: what is it?
Behavior-Driven Development, or BDD, grew out of Test-Driven Development (TDD). TDD strives to produce clear, straightforward code that meets the objectives with no or little code bloat. Instead of explicitly attempting to answer your needs, TDD aims to produce code that passes your tests.
BDD goes one step further by employing a domain-specific language and tests with a set syntax. This offers a structure for describing your features in terms of unit and acceptability tests. To ensure that your tests are clear, you must use exact wording. With this method, you can develop tests that are closely related to the requirements of the company. One of the original BDD frameworks was called Cucumber, and it was first made available to Ruby developers ten years ago. Gherkin is their BDD domain-specific language.
How should I use BDD?
True BDD is a very formulaic approach to testing and software development. You use Cucumber to organise your tests and Gherkin to write them. Using the Gherkin language, product teams may specify the specifications for new features. Every feature in Gherkin has a specific syntax and is defined in a.feature file. The ideal way to do this is to start each line with a Gherkin keyword, with each line defining a different element. The goal is to define each feature in a clear manner so that it can be tested accurately later.
Then, you can specify the tests you’ll use to see if the feature was implemented appropriately. The most crucial aspect is that each test has a set structure: given a condition, when something occurs, you observe the outcome. Although Gherkin is designed to be human-readable, it can be challenging to read at times, just like other formats like XML.
After you’ve defined your features, you utilise Cucumber to make methods to put each feature’s tests into practise. Although it was created with Ruby in mind, Cucumber can also be used to create Java, JavaScript, or Python methods. Using hooks, you can specify test-related pre- and post-conditions, such as database state.
How might behavior-driven development be so beneficial? BDD Advantages
BDD focuses on the requirements of the end user and the behaviour of the product. Importantly, you plan your features and specify your tests at the same time. As a result, if your software passes the tests, it will implement the proper functionality, which is a really unique strategy.
Dan North provided a history of BDD in a blog post from 2006.
“A NLP exercise to stop the misuse of the term “test” in “test-driven development” gave birth to behavior-driven development.”
Here are several advantages that a team that already utilises test-driven development (TDD) or acceptance test-driven development (ATDD) can gain from behavior-driven development.
-BDD offers more specific instructions on how to structure discussions between developers, testers, and domain experts, resulting in more productive communication and collaboration.
-BDD notations, like the given-when-then canvas, are intended to be understandable and used by both technical and non-technical team members since they are designed to mirror everyday English.
-It can save time and increase documentation quality when BDD systems automatically generate technical and end-user documentation from BDD specifications.
NLP stands for neuro-linguistic programming; today, everyone assumes that it stands for natural language processing. Dan North was attempting to change the emphasis from passing tests to testing accurate behaviour, which is what behavior-driven development is all about.
An easy illustration of a BDD feature
Here is a simple illustration of how to create a BDD feature for a login button.
Functionality: Login button
A user need to be able to log in simply providing their information and pressing a button.
The button should direct the user to their homepage if they input a legitimate username and password.
Scenario: User enters valid credentials
Given the user is on a page with the login form
And the user has entered the username “test1”
And the user has entered the password “Pass123”
When he clicks login
Then the user is taken to his homepage
Scenario: User forgets their password
Given the user is on a page with the login fields
And the user has entered the username “test1”
When he clicks the “Forgot password” link
Then the user is taken to the reset password page
Scenario: User enters invalid credentials
Given the user is on a page with the login fields
And the user has entered the username “test1”
And the user has entered the password “Pass321”
When he clicks the login button
Then the login form is displayed again with the username still populated and an error message
The following words are used in this sentence: feature, scenario, given, when, then, and. The assessments are well-defined and simple to comprehend.
How can I stay away from common errors?
Missing a crucial test case is the most typical error you can make. BDD is only as effective as the defined scenarios. The goal is to promote collaboration between your product and development teams. The people who can make sure you are describing every scenario are the product owners.
The misconception that BDD is the only testing you require is another serious error. BDD is excellent for testing features but is unable to evaluate things like usability, UI flaws, performance, etc. The conversion of any user interface tests into test scripts is still required. To put it another way, BDD focuses more on how to develop software than how to test it.
What are some typical obstacles I might run into? BDD Pitfalls
The formulaic nature of Gherkin is the major problem with BDD. For your product team, who are more accustomed to generating user stories, this presents a significant challenge. They will need to change their way of thinking. They must think about the particular features that need to be built rather than concentrating on the user results.
Additionally, integrating BDD with Agile development is difficult. In a waterfall model project where your needs are fixed, BDD is ideal. But with Agile, you modify your product frequently to meet the customer’s evolving needs. This implies that you will have to rewrite features and tests as you go, which could result in an increase in workload of up to twofold.
Conclusion
Focusing on developing better software is made easier by behavior-driven development. It is intended to put more focus on delivering features than on passing tests. It won’t, however, work for every project and is not a miracle cure.
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