Development Flows

Three types of development flows:

• “Classic” development flow,
• Test-driven development flow,
• Behavior-driven development flow.

Test-driven development flow (TDD) and behavior-driven development flow (BDD) are more suitable for a DevOps environment than classic development flow because they both move focus on testing to earlier stages of development.

A classic development flow has the following steps: 

1. Define the criteria the feature will meet

2. Design and implement

3. Create tests that the build must pass

• If the build passes the tests, done
• If the build doesn’t pass the tests, fix bugs until it does pass.

A test-driven development flow has the following steps:

1. Define the criteria the feature will meet

• Define how the story/function will be validated and tested before code creation.
• Understand the scope of the feature where the implementation must meet.
• Understand any boundary conditions, or failure conditions the implementation must handle.

2. Create the tests that the build must pass - Use a simple, structured test case format; Write the test cases.

• If the build passes the tests, done
• If not:

- Design and implement the application according to defined expectations

- Passing the tests is necessary for the feature to be completed.

Behavior-driven development (BDD) is a variation of TDD that uses a domain-specific scripting language (DSL) to describe tests, which are then converted into executable tests. It encourages collaboration among developers, QA, and non-technical or business participants in a software project.

This approach requires the use of a framework (such as SpecFlow) that can translate the DSL statements into executable instructions (in programming languages such as C#). The job of the engineer is no longer to code the tests but to code the DSL translation actions into executable code.

A behavior-driven development flow has the following steps:

1. Define the criteria the feature will meet

• Create Test Cases, for example: "Given two numbers, 1 and 2, when adding the two numbers, then the method returns 3" and "Given two numbers, -1 and -2, when adding the two numbers, then the method returns -3"

2. Create the tests that the build must pass - Define Test Steps.

• If the build passes the test, done
• If the test doesn't pass, design and implement the application according to the expectations defined. The test must pass for the feature to be completed.