unify integration specs

[solnic]

unify integration specs

[solnic]

I do want to unify integration specs. I just don't have a good "vision" of how those specs should be organized. I started with 'examples' spec just to make sure that examples in README aren't broken.

[senny]

What I like about the 'examples' style of writing is the setup. It looks like production code to show-off a specific feature. I think this is a great resource to discover the library. What I don't like about them is the spec-doc output the examples generate. It looks a lot like production code and does not specify the intent of virtus.

@solnic Please let me know when you've decided what direction to take with the integration specs. I would then rewrite them to fit.

@emmanuel @dkubb are there guidelines for these kind of specs in aequitas or veritas?

[solnic]

@senny I think we should move examples/ to spec/integration and group all examples by feature. Every integration example should be checking only one feature of the library. The output of integration specs should be meaningful, should explain how the features work.

[senny]

@solnic I agree, by the output you mean the specdoc? What writing style would you suggest?
I like to black-box approach, where you use the library as intended and create a small "production-like" scenario and only verify from the caller perspective.

[solnic]

@senny yes, the specdoc output. I don't have any strong preference here to be honest. Can you show me an example (a fake one) so that I can see exactly what you mean?

[senny]

@solnic something like: https://gist.github.com/1579301
it's very similar to the specs that were in examples/ but i changed the assertion structure to result in a usable specdoc output.

[solnic]

@senny ah yeah, I like that...one suggestion though, I write specify when the description doesn't refer to 'it'

[senny]

@solnic I updated the gist to use specify. One thing I'm not sure about is how the top level describes should be organized. If we want to have an integration spec for every feature, then a well organized specdoc would be like a 'table-of-contents' for everything. Given that the two describes in my example would not make a lot of sense on the top level... what do you think?

[dkubb]

One other approach we could use is something like https://github.com/avdi/spartan

I've often wondered if we could write integration tests like this so that they communicate intent, and all the rspec overhead is gone, all it is are working code examples.

I don't know how well this would work for virtus, but I figured I'd throw it in in case anyone was interested in running with it.

[senny]

@dkubb interesting approach... This would follow the writing style we currently have in examples/ where we have tests from an application perspective. What we would loose is the spec-doc-output and I think we would gain clarity for people just glancing at the examples.
@solnic let me know what you prefere and I'll open a pull-request with a few rewritten examples to discuss the approach taken.

[solnic]

@dkubb @senny I prefer integration specs written with rspec