Behaviour Driven Development

Behavior-Driven Development (BDD) is a software development approach that aims to bridge the communication gap between business stakeholders and technical teams.

It ensures that everyone involved in the project has a shared understanding and visibility into its progress. BDD utilizes real-world examples written in a common language to illustrate how users will interact with the product. These examples form the foundation for automated tests, ensuring that the software meets user needs and business goals.

BDD has two main moves: Ubiquitous Language and Examples.

The BDD process consists of three phases: Discovery, Formulation, and Automation/Manual.

During the Discovery phase, technical and business teams come together to discuss the desired system behavior. The outcome of this phase is an agreement on the system behavior.

In the Formulation phase, the technical team produces specific examples and use cases based on the agreements made in the Discovery phase. These examples serve as guidance for test automation and are documented.

In the Automation/Manual phase, automated/manual tests are built based on the documented examples, guiding the development process. BDD brings several benefits to software development.

It ensures that features built align with business needs, reduces rework and wasted resources, and improves communication between business and technical teams. BDD also promotes a collaborative environment and uses a common language, making project progress transparent for everyone involved. It results in future-proof design, clean code, and higher software usability. BDD can be used when launching a new feature of an existing software and needing to test it against specific behavior.

It is particularly well-suited for acceptance, integration, and end-to-end testing. However, BDD may not be efficient if the requirements are not clearly specified or in "classic" waterfall projects. Testers using BDD should also have technical skills.

There are various frameworks and tools available for implementing BDD, both open source and commercial. Some popular ones include Behat, Cucumber, FIT, FitNesse, Jasmine, JBehave, RSpec, ScalaTest, Selenium, SpecFlow, Squish, TestLeft, and Tosca.

To further explore BDD, there are articles, podcasts, communities, and online courses available. These resources provide comparisons between BDD and other development approaches, discussions on BDD topics, best practices, and learning opportunities.

Articles:

•What is the Difference Between BDD (Behavior-Driven Development) and TDD (Test-Driven Development)? (https://www.infoq.com/testing/) - InfoQ provides a clear comparison of BDD and TDD.

•BDD vs. User Stories vs. Acceptance Criteria (https://www.garudax.id/advice/3/how-can-you-ensure-acceptance-criteria-met-d7ulc) - Ministry of Testing clarifies the distinctions between these BDD elements.

•BDD Anti-Patterns (https://cucumber.io/blog/bdd/cucumber-antipatterns-part-one/) - Dan North's blog post identifies common pitfalls to avoid while implementing BDD.

Podcasts:

•The Changelog: https://changelog.com/podcast - This software development podcast frequently features episodes discussing BDD and its applications.

•Test Guild Podcast: https://testguild.com/ - This podcast dedicated to software testing often covers BDD topics with industry experts.

Online Courses:

•Behavior-Driven Development (BDD) Fundamentals (Udemy, Pluralsight, etc.) - Various online learning platforms offer BDD courses ranging from beginner to advanced levels.

•BDD in Action (FreeCodeCamp) - FreeCodeCamp provides a free interactive course on BDD concepts.

Communities:

BDD Reddit:https://www.reddit.com/r/BodyDysmorphia/ - Connect with other BDD practitioners and discuss best practices, challenges, and experiences.