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FitNesse

 
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Am I right in thinking that FitNesse is basically a Wiki where you can describe test cases, and record the expected results. These can be tested manually. Then at a later date you can add a Fixture so that they can be tested automatically.

Is there anything else I've missed ?
Once you have your automatic tests, do you run them as unit tests. e.g. every hour for continous integration ?

thanks, D.
 
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Originally posted by Don Kiddick:
Am I right in thinking that FitNesse is basically a Wiki where you can describe test cases, and record the expected results. These can be tested manually. Then at a later date you can add a Fixture so that they can be tested automatically.


That's pretty much it although I haven't heard of anyone actually executing the not-yet-automated test cases manually (sounds feasible, though).

Originally posted by Don Kiddick:
Once you have your automatic tests, do you run them as unit tests. e.g. every hour for continous integration ?

Yes, you should run them as part of your continuous integration process, but probably not as often as you run the unit tests (because acceptance tests may take significantly longer to execute than unit tests and because the pass/fail status of acceptance tests is likely to change less frequently than that of unit tests).

A good rule of thumb might be to set up your CI server to run the unit test suite every 15 minutes and the acceptance test suite every hour or every second hour.
 
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Originally posted by Don Kiddick:
Is there anything else I've missed ?



It is basically a fancy frontend for Fit.

Once you have your automatic tests, do you run them as unit tests. e.g. every hour for continous integration ?



Lasse's values are a good rule of thumb. Notice, though, that I typically run unit tests every couple of minutes locally.
 
Don Kiddick
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That's pretty much it although I haven't heard of anyone actually executing the not-yet-automated test cases manually (sounds feasible, though).



I don't see much advantage of FitNesse over unit testing then...apart from the communication aspect of the wiki. Or am I missing something ?
Maybe the communication aspect is the key thing. In the examples I saw the acceptance tests included a walkthrough of the test - how you would execute the test manually. Is this the case ?

thanks, D.
 
Don Kiddick
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I typically run unit tests every couple of minutes locally.



Do you use a tool for that ?
D.
 
Lasse Koskela
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Originally posted by Don Kiddick:
Do you use a tool for that ?


I believe Ilja is referring to clicking the "Run" button in Eclipse...
 
Lasse Koskela
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Originally posted by Don Kiddick:
I don't see much advantage of FitNesse over unit testing then...apart from the communication aspect of the wiki. Or am I missing something ?
Maybe the communication aspect is the key thing. In the examples I saw the acceptance tests included a walkthrough of the test - how you would execute the test manually. Is this the case ?


A customer can't create new TestCase classes when she wants to add new acceptance tests. She can create a table to represent the same tests, though. The fact that the "test documents" can include inline comments about what you're supposed to be testing etc. is definitely a key feature of FIT and FitNesse.
 
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A customer can't create new TestCase classes when she wants to add new acceptance tests.



This would be indeed a great customer. I am not very sure about the usage of FitNess, but thinking of a customer helping us with test cases makes me somehow happy.

./pope
 
Ilja Preuss
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Originally posted by Lasse Koskela:

I believe Ilja is referring to clicking the "Run" button in Eclipse...



That's true at work. At home (with smaller projects) I let Eclipse automatically run them as part of the automatic build: http://pag.csail.mit.edu/continuoustesting/
 
Alexandru Popescu
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Very nice plugin. Thanks for the tip.

./pope
 
Alexandru Popescu
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If I remember well somebody asked for such a plugin in the IDE forum some time ago. Damn I didn't know about it at that time

./pope
 
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Originally posted by Don Kiddick:
[QB]

I don't see much advantage of FitNesse over unit testing then...apart from the communication aspect of the wiki. Or am I missing something ?



Yes: customers don't know how to write code, but they do know how to express the results they want in tables. That's the value Fit brings beyond just programmer testing.
 
Alexandru Popescu
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This kind of feedback or specification (I like to see it more as part of the specification) from your client is a very important for the system development. You will be sure what your client is expecting and will let you focus on the real goals of the system.

./pope
 
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Hi! I want to use fitnesse but not yet comvinced enough. Is it the distributed version of unit testing or functional testing? I'm working on a large application. Where should I start?

Regards,
Shawon
 
Lasse Koskela
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Hi! I want to use fitnesse but not yet comvinced enough. Is it the distributed version of unit testing or functional testing? I'm working on a large application. Where should I start?


It's not really a distributed version of unit testing and it's not functional testing in the traditional sense either. Most FitNesse users probably use it as an acceptance testing tool which bypasses the UI and pokes the layer beneath the UI to verify that the required functionality is in place and is working correctly.

At this time, there aren't many Fit or FitNesse tutorials, I'm afraid, so your best option is probably to just download FitNesse and read the User Guide.

There's also a book on FIT coming out in April 2005 by Rick Mugridge and Ward Cunningham.
[ October 28, 2004: Message edited by: Lasse Koskela ]
 
Omar Faruq Shawon
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Thanks Lasse Koskela!

I have tried the user guide and run fitnesse to my own machine. But still I have some confusion. If you are used to fitness, would you please tell me, how the users can help me while they will use fitness?
 
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