What are the differences between BDD frameworks for Java?
What are the pros and cons of each Behavior Driven Development (BDD) framework for Java?
I've found some of them here, for example.
Does it make sense to use a BDD framework if I already use a mocking library (e.g. Mockito)?
Answer
I've just finished comparing three BDD frameworks for Java. Obviously my findings have a fairly short use-by date.
- Very flexible
- Very pretty report output
- Nice plugin framework
- Poorly documented. I had to read the source to figure it out (luckily its extremely good quality).
- Fixtures seemed likely to end up tightly coupled to the html.
- Very shallow learning curve (even for non-Groovy Developers)
- Extremely powerful DBUnit integration
- Apparently no support for parameters (leads to either very vague stories or duplication between text and code (edit: actually there is but the documentation for it was very well hidden.)
- Story and Code are very tightly coupled (same file)
- Very basic report output
- Couldn't get IntelliJ plugin to work
- Inactive community (Maven plugin seems to have been broken for three months - not many code examples to draw on)
- Extremely powerful and flexible (eg reduction of boiler-plate through composition of stories as pre-requisites)
- Extensive (if fragmented) documentation and examples
- Extensive (if overwhelming) support for different frameworks and environments
- Excellent separation of story files from code
- Looks to have a pretty active community and much more examples and discussion of it on web.
- Quite a steep learning curve (took me 3-4 times longer to figure out than Concordion/EasyB)
I didn't have the chance to try out Cuke4Duke of JDave as I would have liked, but will probably push for JBehave at this time.