Quality Assurance using Behat and the Drupal Extension

Presented by: Melissa Anderson & Jonathan Hedstrom

• drupal.org: eliza411

• twitter: lz411

• 

• drupal.org: jhedstrom

• twitter: jhedstro

• 

Because Drupal has:

• Powerful value added by non-developers
• Complex module interactivity
• Frequent security updates with functionality changes

We need to:

• Know how users are expected to move through the application
• Know how the application is expected to respond
• Keep that knowledge in sync with changes
• Test that those user paths work

Because our applications are:

• dependent on third-party libraries
• integrated with third-party services
• highly visible
• globally accessible

We need to be able to:

• Develop rapidly
• Deploy frequently

Describe

Our goal is to describe application behavior in a way ...

Feature: Forum posts on front page
  In order to see recent activity and news in the forums
  As any user
  I should be able to view links to the latest forum posts on the front page


  Scenario: Forum Posts tab on front page
    Given there is a new "Paid Drupal services" forum topic
    And the cache is cleared
    And I am on the homepage
    When I follow "Forum Posts"
    Then I should see the forum topic link
    And I should see the link "More forums"

Automate

...that we can turn into automated, browser-clicking functional tests:

From a BDD Perspective

• Automatable functional tests are only a bonus
  • They are not the primary goal of BDD
  • They do not replace unit tests
• BDD is about
  • Discovering what we need to build
  • Ensuring what we build has value
  • When we test, focusing our tests on the right things

Types of Testing

• Unit Testing (Classes or methods)
• Integration Testing (Multiple classes interacting)
• Functional Testing (Automated testing against acceptance criteria)
• GUI Testing (Automated testing in a graphical brower)
• Manual Testing (Human click-testing)

At the Core

• TDD tests tell programmers their code is working
• BDD tests ensure that the application is delivering business value
• http://www.tomslabs.com/index.php/2011/04/test-automation-strategy/

Dealing with Technical Debt

http://www.matthewbussa.com/2011/01/evolution-of-automated-testing.html

Building a Solid Foundation

The Roots of BDD: Test-Driven Development

• Cycle:
  • Add a test
  • Run tests and see the new one fail
  • Write some code
  • Run the automated tests and see them succeed
  • Refactor code
  • Repeat
• Purpose
  • Encourage simple designs
  • Facilitate short release cycles
  • Provide higher confidence in releases

Behavior-Driven Development

Behavior-driven development emerged from test-driven development, to answer these questions:

• Where do I start?
• What do I test?
• How much do I test in one go?
• What do I call the tests?
• How can I understand why a test fails?

Fundamental Principles of Story BDD

Ignorance

Ignorance is the biggest constraint in software development

—Dan North

Value

Every feature should have a measurable business value

Communication

Everyone on the team should have a common language to describe the site

Conversation

Having conversations

is more important than

Capturing conversations

is more important than

Automating conversations

—Liz Keough