The remarkable thing about rhythm is that you tend not to notice it. But once it’s absent, suddenly something feels off, and you struggle to figure out what it is.
Hang on – we’re making software, not music!
Alle creative endeavours have rhythm. This occurred to me the other day when I was comparing C++ Behaviour-driven Development (BDD) frameworks. I was looking at various examples, and I noticed some immediately appealed to me, while others felt kind of meh, even though they were technically fine. What was going on?
It became clear to me that the ones I favoured were those that offered a clear rhythm. There was an obvious approach to formulating scenarios or tests.
Maybe this is especially helpful in BDD, with its given-when-then mantra. Or at least especially obvious.
This experience reinforced my impression that, apart from all its other advantages, the main plus for me is that BDD is a tool to help shape and focus how I think about my current topic as a whole. And at the same time it helps me approach the details of test case creation.
What’s your experience with BDD?
And the way it does that is through rhythm. Following that rhythm makes it obvious if tests are somehow misshapen, too long, too short, or lacking clarity.
And once you’ve written your tests, maybe you’ll find that they now read… friendlier. Less ragged, perhaps. Anyway this was my experience.
So if you haven’t used BDD yet, I suggest you give it a try. And if you have, I’m curious to hear if you had a different experience from me.