Trees, forests and applications... please let´s turn tests in real specifications.

To understand the tree, you need to look at the forest. To understand a forest you need to look at the trees. Clients normaly want to see the forest, but developers like to develop trees. A big step taken by the agile process is to start moving the developers to see the forest, not only the trees that compose that forest.

When I was trying to learn how to draw, the good teachers kept telling me to do things from the outer to the inner. TDD and BDD brought a broader vision to this. But I still have a feeling that we need to start from a little bit before and we also need to have a beeter picture of the tree.

The standart bdd tools, using a strict grammar is nice. But, how do we see the results? Are they results at all?

No, they are the specifications. For tests we have results and for specification we have what? I think in examples and these can be working or not workin. So, how do I take a good look at the specifications and see what parts are working, incomplete, not working....

I have not seen yet this being addressed by any tool. Colored test results from a little piece of specification, as most tools will produce, won´t give me the forest view. Forest have leaves, flowers, stems and other important things to be noticed to understand the forest. I think we should think more in writing specs to be read and understood by humans than by continuous integration tools. They should be extremely easy to navigate, search and write. Images are essential in some place, they need to have a way to be added.

So I think there is a gap to be filled.... that´s why I´ve started PSpec.