I read an interesting post today by David Chelimsky who wrote RSpec A case against a case against mocking and stubbing. Its about mocking in testing and isolated vs integrated tests. I liked it all but what I particularly liked is how it describes the process of outside-in development.

To quote:

1. 
   
2. Write scenarios in plain text with cucumber (driven by user stories, organized in features).
3. 
   
4. Write the code for a step (or part of a step), run the feature, and observe the failure.
5. 
   
6. Optionally (yes, it depends – and why is the topic for another blog) drive out a view with a view spec. When I say “drive out,” I mean a very granular Red/Green/Refactor cycle that only involves this view, and only enough of this view to support satisfaction of the failing step in the cucumber feature.
7. 
   
8. Drive out a controller action using the same, granular Red/Green/Refactor cycle. And it may not be the entire controller action I think I want, covering all the cases I think I want. Just enough to support satisfaction of the failing step.
9. 
   
10. Drive out the parts of the model that I need to satisfy the failing step, using the same granular R/G/R process.
11. 
    
12. Run the cucumber feature and assess where I am.
13. 
    

In my projects I think I'm pretty good at following 3,4 &5 but I've struggled with steps 1 & 6. With the advent of cucumber I think now is the time to work on those other steps. I'll let you know how it goes in the New Year.