[TIP] [ANN] Robot Framework 2.5

[Pekka Klärck]

2010/6/16 Arve Knudsen <arve.knudsen at gmail.com>:
> Before looking into this, how does Robot compare to Cucumber/RSpec (the two
> other BDD frameworks I know of)?

RSpec is more to unit testing than to acceptance testing, but Robot
Framework and Cucumber definitely are similar in many ways. The
obvious difference with them is that the former is Python (runs also
on Jython and to some extend on IronPython) whereas the latter is Ruby
(but has been ported to many other languages). Cucumber is also pretty
pure BDD tool but with RF is multi-paradigm and you can also use
keyword-driven and data-driven approaches. I would also say that the
logs and reports you get from RF are better, but I know I'm biased.

The biggest difference, in my opinion, is that with Cucumber you
implement the steps you use in your tests directly in code, but with
RF you can construct those steps using the same syntax that is used
for creating test cases. Only the lowest level steps (we call them
keywords) are then implemented in "real" code. Developers may find the
former approach better but the latter works well with testers who
don't know how to program with any real language. This difference is
discussed well also in the following blog post by Gojko Adzic:
http://gojko.net/2010/04/13/how-to-implement-ui-testing-without-shooting-yourself-in-the-foot-2/

It would be interesting to hear feedback if you have a change to try
Robot Framework in practice!

Cheers,
    .peke
-- 
Agile Tester/Developer/Consultant :: http://eliga.fi
Lead Developer of Robot Framework :: http://robotframework.org