> Richie!
>
>>    On the other side, for SqueakNOS I'm not writing no tests. I don't
>> really know how to write tests for the HardwareDevices, but the truth is
>> that I have not yet felt the magic of tests, so I'm not pushing it too
>> hard... mea culpa.
>
> That's really too bad! Stop working that way and start writing tests. 
> You will love them!
>
> /Leandro
>
Dear Richie,

I think that it is fair enough to write some code without tests in order 
to get things working, and I understand that it may be difficult to 
write tests for hardware devices.

The way that we talk about testing does not really capture the true 
nature and benefits of "test first" coding. There is an article by Dave 
Astels about this, (and a podcast on the "Agile Toolkit" series) in 
which he suggests changing the wording that we use to talk about tests, 
and then it makes a lot more sense and can begin to drive  and support 
the way we develop. This approach has been called Behaviour Driven 
Development, and I think it may be worth a look for you.

Dave talks about specifications. First defining the working context.

context( initial state, hardware is not present at all )
specification( auto discover should not find hardware )
{
expectation: do auto discover should raise NotFound  
}
specification( attempt to send data should raise error )
{
expectation: send data should raise error
}

Dave has wrote a Smalltalk version of rSpec (ruby spec), called sSpec, a 
month or two ago. I wrote spec.js for javascript. I believe that Dave 
has it working and available in VisualWorks. It would be great if 
someone just did the last bit of the port into squeak.

Another aspect of the specification frameworks is the extensive use of 
Mock objects, and these beauties could be used to stand in for bits of 
hardware in your tests. You can preload a generic mock object with the 
expected behaviours and responses and pass it in instead of the real thing.

Like many will tell you tests rock, but thinking in terms of 
specification of expected behaviour is a good way of thinking a problem 
through. The use of a framework such as sSpec allows these thoughts to 
be penned as an executable specification.  Which is really  cool... well 
I thought so.

best regards

Keith








	
	
		
___________________________________________________________ 
All new Yahoo! Mail "The new Interface is stunning in its simplicity and ease of use." - PC Magazine 
http://uk.docs.yahoo.com/nowyoucan.html