PHPSpec 0.2.0beta Released

PHPSpec looks alright, but as a PHPUnit junkie there’s a few questions I’ve got.

1) http://dev.phpspec.org/manual/source.code.examples.as.documentation.html

This doesn’t really help me understand the fundamental differences between PHPSpec and PHPUnit – what should I read so I can better understand it?

2) http://dev.phpspec.org/manual/getting.started.html#you.start.by.writing.a.specification

This example isn’t clear enough either – this could be trivially done in PHPUnit; and that’s clearly not the point – are there better examples available?

3) This article is somewhat clearer, and explains some of the rationale – http://dannorth.net/introducing-bdd

How does PHPSpec stack up against the ideas set forth there?

Hi Daniel,

I’ll try to keep it brief because I expect there’ll be a more in-depth look at PHPSpec vs Framework X in the future days.

1) The difference is that PHPUnit is a unit testing library which may be used to apply TDD (barring the exclusion of Mock Objects which are not working all that well). PHPSpec is a dedicated BDD framework. On the outside any simple PHPSpec example will look trivial, but this belies how simple it is. In general PHPUnit tests are not formatted or formulated as described in the PHPSpec manual – this is really a matter of fact – any review of open source projects using PHPUnit will demonstrate that TDD in PHP is in general poorly implemented. PHPSpec on the other hand is far more difficult to misinterpret (the conventions are fixed into the framework API and manual), simpler to read, automatically pushes several well known xUnit Patterns, and will integrate later into PHPMock and PHPMutagen (both facets PHPUnit at present does not have – PHPUnit 4 for example will be adopting PHPMock – so PHPSpec has already had a real impact on your drug of choice ). You can also note Unit Testing in Ruby has been increasingly diminishing in the face of RSpec (PHPSpec’s cousin in Ruby space).

2) PHPUnit I doubt expresses “You Start By Writing A Specification”. The example is trivial outside the scope of the BDD process and mindset which is as important in BDD as the framework. Several in-depth examples of BDD are available since I applied BDD in writing PHPMock – http://phpmock.googlecode.com/svn/branches/padraic/specs/. At its heart PHPUnit is for unit testing primarily, and still has ground to cover before becoming a complete TDD solution (e.g. badly needs vastly improved Mock Object support, Mutation Testing support, and it looks like Java’s Hamcrest is already in the works by Sebastian).

3) PHPSpec’s gold standard are other *Spec frameworks in .NET, Smalltalk, Ruby and Java. Stacked against these PHPSpec should reach parity by 1.0.0 (within say 5-6 months). Given that BDD is best exemplified by these frameworks (e.g. RSpec is developed by several leading BDD advocates) PHPSpec is well on target. It’s only weakness is it’s infancy at a mere 0.2 release .

I think in general, as I probably noted on the blog before, PHPSpec is having a positive impact not just for raising the visibility of BDD, but for TDD at large. PHPUnit looks set to adopt PHPMock, Hamcrest; PHPT has already adopted some BDD expectation language for PEAR2, and I have little doubt SimpleTest will react in the future (or so says Marcus when threatening to steal all the ideas ).

Which is sort of the point. As Dan North would point out, with TDD being so poorly performed something is needed to give the methodology a push in the right direction.

Your description of PHPSpec is a little vague, but I'm going to give it a try out nonetheless.