searchzen combating complexity so you do not have to

BDD is not about testing

When talking to people about BDD and my lame example using Paris Hilton, then I got the question “it was really interesting reading about Paris Hiliton .. but what is BDD really about?.

The central insight of BDD is that TDD is really computer aided specifications of the executable behaviour of your system. BDD tries to express this using a Domain Specific language.

Back in 2006 , Dave Astels described how to ascend from the focus on 1-1 testing of production code to use the test proces as a way to describe the way you want your system to behave.

In the video Dave makes the valid point that “The words you use shape how you think”. So we should go away from thinking about “testing” constantly to think about describing how you want your system to work.

So to me - BDD sounds like a kickstart to be productive in TDD - and do it well from the start. So if you are starting out on TDD , you should really start out doing BDD.