The RSpec Book is now in beta

January 29th, 2009

The RSpec Book

I’m pleased to announce the beta release of the Pragmatic Bookshelf’s The RSpec Book: Behaviour Driven Development with RSpec, Cucumber and Friends!

It’s been a long time coming, and there’s still a lot of work to do to get to print. The beta release has 9 of the 22 chapters we have planned. Most of what remains is almost done, but not quite ready to release yet. As with all of the Pragmatic beta books, we’ll do regular updates every few weeks as we wrap up the remaining chapters and incorporate your feedback. And please do provide feedback. We want this book to serve you well!

There are six authors involved: Dave Astels, Zach Dennis, Aslak Hellesøy, Bryan Helmkamp, Dan North, and me. I’m honored to be in such good company here, with the guys who brought us BDD, to the developers and maintainers of RSpec, Cucumber and Webrat.

You can read more (and buy the book!) at http://www.pragprog.com/titles/achbd/the-rspec-book

On behalf of all the authors, I’d like to extend a special thank you to all of you who have contributed to the software and the conversation around RSpec, Cucumber, and BDD in general. RSpec would be nothing without the community that has evolved around it, so thank you, thank you, thank you!

Posted by David Filed in Uncategorized

5 Responses to “The RSpec Book is now in beta”

  1. Ben Mabey Says:
    January 29th, 2009 at 3:42 pm

    Congrats! I have already read several chapters and I can tell it will be a great resource for people learning, not only RSpec and Cucumber, but about BDD in general. Great job, and thank you!

  2. Alistair Holt Says:
    January 29th, 2009 at 3:42 pm

    Great. I’ve been waiting for the book for quite some time and can’t wait for the final release. I do find it a little disappointing there wasn’t a promo/discount code in your post though ;)

  3. Ben Wagaman Says:
    January 29th, 2009 at 3:42 pm

    Thanks so much for working on this. I’m looking forward to reading it.

  4. Gaspard Bucher Says:
    January 29th, 2009 at 3:42 pm

    I was quite skeptical about RSpec a year ago but it has evolved so well now that it solves all the problems I had with test/unit (context definitions in particular).

    <p>Just bought the book !</p>


<p>Thank you very very much David for easing my testing work with <a href="http://zenadmin.org">zena</a>, a rails <span class="caps">CMS</span> that is migrating to RSpec with rails 2.2.</p>
  5. Jean-Michel Garnier Says:
    January 29th, 2009 at 3:42 pm

    David, I just bought the beta book and I am looking forward to reading it and give some feedback!

    <p>As an environmentalist, I&#8217;d like to question the choice of an incandescent bulb to represent a technology as innovative as RSpec.</p>


<p>I have been volunteering for 2 years in an environmentalist <span class="caps">NGO</span> and one of the things I keep repeating is how bad for the environment are the old incandescent bulbs. I guess pragmatic programmers editors and RSpec book authors are very busy finishing the book and have other priorities &#8230;</p>


<p>However, in these times of &#8220;green revolution&#8221;, I hope that many RSpec users feel concerned about environmental issues and ask David and other authors to pick another image cover. It&#8217;s a detail, I know but we have to replace all these electricity greedy bulbs even in the book covers!</p>


<p>RSpec is for alpha geek &#8211; the earlier adopters &#8211; and I don’t identify myself to a technology born in the <span class="caps">XIX</span> century !!!</p>


<p>Why not using a Compact Fluorescent bulb?</p>


<p>Or even more alpha geek, an <span class="caps">LED</span>_lamp?</p>


<p><a href="http://21croissants.blogspot.com/2009/02/rspec-book-never-judge-book-by-its.html">http://21croissants.blogspot.com/2009/02/rspec-book-never-judge-book-by-its.html</a></p>