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The article seems to assume that it is, in fact, possible to completely and correctly specify a system, and not only that, do so ahead of development. This is
by joshwa 8y ago
The article seems to assume that it is, in fact, possible to completely and correctly specify a system, and not only that, do so ahead of development.
This is a pipe dream in all but a minuscule slice of software projects.
GWT/cucumber is as decent a tool as any for creating automated tests of system actions (and especially interactions) in a mostly-human-readable format that is likely to be understood by BAs, testers, and devs, even if not all of them are expected to be able to write them.
I've used them across many projects with great success, with the understanding that it's not intended to replace unit tests for calculations, nor stories for initial specification.
As endian says downthread[0]: ", G/W/T isn't the solution to domain understanding, conversations are. You should be continually communicating to between all stake holders to maintain a current domain understanding."
[0] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19674013 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19674013
- pcm191 7y agoHi Josh The article definitely does not make that assumption. The expectation is that the business analyst (someone with business analysis skills) will specify a small slice of the solution that will deliver value. Based on feedback it is expected that the specification will evolve. I think you are spot on about readability. A specification in human readable form can easily be verified by a wider range of stakeholders. Chris
- p1necone 8y agoIt seems pretty obvious to me that any way to "completely and correctly specify a system" is going to look a hell of a lot like a programming language, and be no less complex or hard to understand than one... it's almost a tautology.