Introduction
Go was designed in 2007 at Google. Robert Griesemer, Rob Pike, and Ken Thompson designed it to increase programming productivity. Go is widely used by Google and other open-source projects. The former domain of Go golang.org, therefore, is also referred to as Golang. The syntax of Go is almost similar to the C programming language. But unlike C, Go also has garbage collection, memory safety, etc. It also provides high readability and usabilities like Javascript and Python.
This article will discuss behavior-driven development testing. We will discuss two methods of BDD testing - one is by using Ginkgo, and the other by using Gomega. But before that, let's discuss what BDD testing is.
BDD Testing
BDD stands for behavior-driven development. To accomplish stated business goals, the developer must define certain behaviors based on the vision communicated by the client or product manager. Afterward, the tester checks if the new feature meets the "why" behind it.
For example, if a client said they had found in their research that they had a lot of older users handling their application, and they needed an accessible solution, you, as the developer following a BDD model, would consider how this behavior changes which features you would add to the application - perhaps larger fonts and easily clickable items.
BDD specifications are usually written in non-tech language to enable non-technical stakeholders to participate in their development. As a result, the development and final product are aligned with stakeholders' expectations.
Go has a fairly capable built-in testing package. However, it does have a few limitations. This article will explain (with some simple examples) how we use Ginkgo and Gomega at Bold to write more expressive and structured unit tests in Go. As BDD is a higher version of test-driven testing (TDD), so let’s see what TDD is.
Test Driven Development (TDD)
TDD is developed to specify and validate what the code will do. It is an approach to software development in which test cases are developed. For each functionality, test cases are created and tested first, and if the test fails, new code is then written to pass the test. This keeps the code simple and bug-free.
In Test-Driven Development, each small function of an application is tested. TDD framework provides developers to write new code only if an automated test has failed due to functional change. This avoids duplication of code in TDD development. The full name of TDD is Test-driven development.
Get an introduction to TDD. Go is the best language to learn TDD because it is a very simple language to learn, and testing is built-in. Be confident that you'll be able to start writing robust, well-tested systems in Go.