BDD, Behat, and Drupal

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In this episode Kyle Hofmeyer, Joe Shindelar and Emma Jane Westby are joined by special guest Melissa Anderson to talk about the concepts of BDD (Behavioral-driven development) and some of the tools available for automating BDD style tests.

There's a lot of ground to cover and we don't waste any time. In this episode we talk about the key reasons to use BDD: to improve development processes; to improve conversations with stakeholders; and, of course, to automate testing of your sites so that you can avoid click-style testing of new code. We dive into the specifics of what tools you will need for Drupal-powered sites: Behat, Mink, Selenium, and the Drupal extension.

We also discuss the Gherkin feature syntax and how it's intended to provide a way to both automate tests and to make it easier for everyone involved with a project to discuss a feature set using a common language. As well as some of the philosophies behind BDD and best practices for writing good testing scenarios.

We wrap up the episode with a discussion of how BDD is being used to assist in the development of Drupal.org and it's used to ensure our favorite community resource continues to function as expected.