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juliocesar / testing_front_end_rspec_capybara.md
Created October 21, 2010 23:51
Testing front-end for a Sinatra app with RSpec and Capybara

Testing front-end for a Sinatra app with RSpec and Capybara

I've used Cucumber quite a bit on my last job. It's an excellent tool, and I believe readable tests are the way to the future. But I could never get around to write effective scenarios, or maintain the boatload of text that the suite becomes once you get to a point where you have decent coverage. On top of that, it didn't seem to take much for the suite to become really slow as tests were added.

A while ago I've seen a gist by Lachie Cox where he shows how to use RSpec and Capybara to do front-end tests. That sounded perfect for me. I love RSpec, I can write my own matchers when I need them with little code, and it reads damn nicely.

So for my Rails Rumble 2010 project, as usual, I rolled a Sinatra app and figured I should give the idea a shot. Below are my findings.

Gemfile