Spock: A Highly Logical Way To Test
Spock is a fabulous new testing framework for the JVM. Spock leverages all the DSL power of the Groovy language to make testing a breeze. Spock tests are concise and readable, with excellent support for error reporting and for mock object creation. Spock removes much of the pain from test driven development!
Spock is a testing DSL (Domain Specific Language) that transforms the Groovy programming language into a language specifically targeting testing. Spock can be used to test Java, Groovy, or any JVM language.
In Spock, classes are test specifications; methods of those classes are used to describe expected features of the system under specification. Each feature method is broken up into blocks that specify a stimulus (such as invoking a method) and a response (the behavior or state from that method invocation). Spock keeps you honest about what kind of code can appear in each block, and the end result is a highly readable, highly maintainable test.
Spock also has first class support for mock-object testing, and the Spock DSL uses an elegant and obvious syntax to specify how the mock objects interact with the system under specification. Rolled together, Spock is a formidable tool ... and makes using any other testing framework a highly illogical choice.
About Howard Lewis Ship
Howard Lewis Ship is the creator and lead developer for the Apache Tapestry project, and is a noted expert on Java framework design and developer productivity. He has over twenty years of full-time software development under his belt, with over ten years of Java. He cut his teeth writing customer support software for Stratus Computer, but eventually traded PL/1 for Objective-C and NeXTSTEP before settling into Java.
Howard is respected in the Java community as an expert on web application development, dependency injection, Java meta-programming, and developer productivity. He is a frequent speaker at JavaOne, NoFluffJustStuff, ApacheCon and other conferences, and the author of "Tapestry in Action" for Manning (covering Tapestry 3.0). Lately, he's been dipping his toes into alternate languages, including Clojure.
Howard is an independent consultant, offering Tapestry training, mentoring and project work as well as training in Clojure. He lives in Portland, Oregon with his wife Suzanne, and his son, Jacob.
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