Acceptance_testing

Mike Ratliff did a very good presentation on Fit/Fitnesse at Valtech Days. While praising the effects it can have on a development project, he also highlighted some of its quirks such as the ones I’ve complained about earlier.

The main point he made in my mind was when he said that Fit is not a testing tool but a requirements tool. It does not replace your regular acceptance testing tools. According to Mike, the main advantage Fitnesse brings is an increased, and executable, dialogue between customers and developers, and the possibility for customers to work with the spec in a “what if” manner.

I’m spending some time getting into Fit style acceptance testing and I’m liking what I see. My biggest problem so far is translation.

For all you non-Swedish-speaking out there, most techie lingo gets a very crude translation, basically by not translating it at all and using the english word as is. So a unit test in english is also a unit test in swedish.

But I’ve bit my tongue at least 10 times today saying “Fit tests” in swedish. Basically by not translating it I’m saying what I believe is considered the dirtiest word in the swedish langauge.