A number of updates, since it’s been a while since I posted anything remotely update-y.

First off, as those of you who follow me on twitter already know, there’s been a change in my employment status. Starting Monday, I’ll be working for Obtiva. I’m very excited about this. I like to do a lot of different things &emdash; code, lead teams, coach, do training, write &emdash; and it looks like I’ll get the chance to do pretty much all of them at Obtiva. Some of you reading this were helpful either by offering support or helping me make a connection, thank you all.

Obtiva doesn’t do a company blog the way Pathfinder does, but I’m hoping to continue to write about Rails, software development, TDD, or whatever else springs to mind. I do think I might switch to a different blogging platform though, the spam attacks are getting to be a little to much for the haphazard install I’ve got going here.

As for the book, it’s moving along. Oddly, job hunting actually didn’t give me as much time to work on it over the last couple of weeks as I was hoping. All the text has been converted to Pragmatic markup, we’ve come up with what I think is the new structure of the book, which groups chapters by common topic more strongly than the original structure did. Hoping for a round of editing based on that structure to be completed shortly, and then we’ll move on to the last round of new chapters, and whatever other review and edit processes come next.

I certainly hope some of you are wondering how the transition to the Pragmatic version of Rails Test Prescriptions is going. Here’s some notes.

Right up top, I want to mention that I’ll be presenting at Windy City Rails on September 12th, with a talk called “How To Test Everything”. There are, I think, still some seats available for the conference, and I’ll get the slides up online as soon as I can.

The self-published version is now off sale—the text on this site will change shortly to reflect that. The update and registration pages are still up, so registered users can continue to download revision seven of the book.

A couple of people have asked me if Pragmatic is going to have some sort of special deal for people who have purchased the self-published version. My answer is in three parts. First off, I don’t know and I’m not the person who would make that decisions. Second, I’d be surprised if they did something directly, the logistics from Pragmatics perspective seem like a pain. Third, without promising anything, I am hoping to do some kind of acknowledgement of the people who bought this book originally, but it’s too soon to tell what form that might take.

Right now, moving the book forward is happening along two different avenues. First, translating my text, which is Markdown, to Pragmatic’s XML/DocBook-like markup. It’s not quite fully automatable, but with the power of TextMate behind me, it’s going fairly quickly. The main slowdown is the sections with actual live code (as opposed to example snippets that aren’t really in a live app). Loving that I can still write in TextMate and build PDF’s from the command line—a wonderfully geeky way to work.

It looks like 1 self-published page is about 2/3 of a Pragmatic page. We’re tentatively hoping that the book as published will have at least 250 pages of text, so if you do the math, that means that at least 25% of the Pragmatic book will be completely new—some new topics, extensions of existing topics, probably a bit more on the TDD process rants, of which there is less in the book than I thought (everthing existing will be updated and polished, of course.) I know what a lot of that new ground is going to be, but I’m open to suggestions as well.

The other avenue I’m discussing with my editor is the structure of the book. The self-published version was originally conceived as something like a recipe book, but it’s not really much like a recipe book at the moment. We’ve decided not to publish it as a recipe book, which means reordering the somewhat random chapter order into something more coherent, and probably consolidating some of the smaller chapters together. Ideally, this will make the entire book easier to follow and easier to browse.

One last thing: I’ve had some questions on how I reconcile the “this book will always be up-to-date” things that I’ve written with dead trees. Fair question. Here are some answers:

• I am large and contain multitudes.
• Pragmatic is unusually good about keeping their content up to date with e-book updates, and also with public, maintained errata pages on their site. I felt the book could still be kept relevant for a long time.
• It dawned on me sometime over the summer that I has basically set myself up with an infinite task and I’ve been trying to think of a way to make doing this book more manageable. I like that the book part of this now has something like an end point, then I can try to keep everything current in some other way.

Rails Test Prescriptions update 7 is now available.

The biggest changes are:

1. New chapter on Webrat
2. Expansion of my Pathfinder blog post on what to do when tests fail.

Also, a bunch of typo fixes and what not.

This is most likely the last revision of the self-published version of this book. Although the book itself will go off sale Aug 28, the revision will continue to be available for registered users going forward.

This blog will, of course, continue, watch for news on the Pragmatic version as well as the occasional cranky rant.

Future changes will be handled via an errata page on this site, and probably also blog posts here.

Thanks for your support.

Let’s lead with the headline:

Rails Test Prescriptions is going to be published by Pragmatic.

I’m very excited by this. I’ve wanted to work with Pragmatic for as long as they’ve been publishing books, and I’m thrilled that this particular project will be able to get wider distribution and access to Pragmatic’s editorial expertise and skill.

Thanks to everybody who has supported this book. I can’t express how much I appreciate your attention and enthusiasm. You have made working on this book a pleasure.

Here’s what this means for you:

• The current free “Getting Started with Rails Testing” ebook will continue to be available. If, at some time in the future, there’s a better Getting Started tutorial in the Pragmatic book, it may be offered as a replacement.

• The update site for current Rails Test Prescription owners will continue to be available for the foreseeable future.

• There will be one more official update to the current Rails Test Prescriptions, probably around the end of August. This will wrap up the chapter or two I’m working on, and tie up some other loose ends.

• After that, errata and information about changes to test tools will most likely be handled via this blog and an errata page on this site.

• It’s relevant to mention that this update would likely have been the last new content in the book even without Pragmatic’s interest.

• The current version of “Rails Test Prescriptions” will go off-sale, and will be removed from Lulu.com as of August 28, 2009.

This all happened quickly. As much as I’ve loved self-publishing, I’m looking forward to working with Pragmatic. A few weeks ago, after Gregg Pollack’s mention on the Rails weblog spiked sales for several days, I figured that there was never going to be a better time, and I submitted the book to Pragmatic. The theory being that if they said no, I still was enjoying doing the book myself, but if they said yes, it’d really be an opportunity to take this project to the next level.

Pragmatic surprised me not just by agreeing to publish the book, but by turning the whole thing around so quickly—just about a month from initial contact to signed contract. And even though I would definitely self publish again, I’m looking forward to some help on the parts of the book process I’m not that strong on (cover design, marketing, etc…).

I will know more about what happens next later this week after I start talking with my editor at Pragmatic. I suspect some reorganization will take place, as the book changes from merely individual chapters to a more coherent whole. Timeline, exact content, and other issues have yet to be determined, but I’ll keep you all posted here as I know things.

Thanks again to all those who have written me with praise and criticism, and especially to those of you who have pointed out errors of fact, grammar, or clarity. This process has been much more fun because of you, and the book is better for your attention.

Well, it’s been way too long, but revision 006 is now up at Lulu and on the download page of this site.

The two biggest changes are a new chapter on Rcov, and a general read-through and edit of the entire manuscript. Here’s the entire changelog:

• New chapter on Rcov
• Typos fixed from Dana Jones, Keith Gautreaux, and Greg Lockwood
• General fixes to things like external links
• Some more clarity in the mocks chapter
• Better discussion of setup blocks in setup chapter, also a much more detailed discussion of contexts and nested contexts
• Error in RSpec matchers section corrected
• Cucumber section benefits from more experience
• Couple of layout experiments. Per a suggestion from Jim Zajkowski, I’ve moved the sidebars to the right to enhance readability. I also changed the code font to Anonymous Pro.

Also, welcome to all the new readers, and a big thanks to Gregg Pollack for recognizing this book on the Ruby on Rails weblog. Hope you all like it.

Okay, it’s been a while since I’ve posted here and some things have built up. Here’s what’s going on.

Chicago Ruby Talk

First off, for those of you in and around Chicago, I’ll be presenting at a ChicagoRuby.org meeting downtown on Tuesday, June 23rd at 6:00 PM. Click here for details. The talk will be on the general topic of good testing practices, especially for getting started with testing.

Book Status

I’ve been working through reading the book, making edits, incorporating comments that I got from Dana Jones, making sure everything is up-to-date and that I still agree with everything. It’s been going slowly. I currently expect the next update to be the 29th, rather than the 22nd, but I also hope that will include new sections on Rcov and Webrat.

Twitter

I’ve started posting a testing tip every day (well, not sure about weekends) on the twitter @railsrx account—take a look.

Registration Email

If you’ve registered your book at the railsrx site, and haven’t gotten an return email, try and log in anyway, I’ve probably approved you. We’re having some issues apparently with the response emails getting marked as spam and bouncing, which we’re working on mitigating.

Pathfinder Blog

Over on the Pathfinder blog, I’ve had some testing related posts in the last few weeks:

• Rails Testing Frequently Asked Questions — The Non-Code Version

• Factory tools for fixture replacement: a comparison

• Comparing Ruby Mock Object Libraries

• The Return of the Cucumber

Here’s what’s up.

The next book update will be next week, either Sunday or Monday, depending on how the holiday weekend goes. The lineup:

• New chapter on RSpec. This looks like it’s going to be… thorough. As with pretty much every big-ticket section of this book, I always wind up writing more detail than I originally think I’m going to.

• General edit of the book, incorporating some great proofreading notes from Dana Jones and adding references to RSpec in other chapters as needed.

• If time permits, I’ll either do a relatively short tool article (rcov is a possibility), or add on to one of the style and rationale pieces.

Those of you who have reported the issue with text search in the book using Apple’s Preview or Skim, which I think both use the same core Mac OS library—I’m trying to track it down. The makers of the PrinceXML software that generates the PDF point to the fact that everything works fine in Adobe Reader and say it’s a Skim problem. The Skim team has been a little harder to track down, but they aren’t convinced. More news when, or if, events warrant. (It does seem like, whoever is at fault, there’s a setting I’m using that’s exposing the bug. Sure wish I knew what it was.)

• For the rest of this week, I’m answering questions in the forums at Ruby Learning.org—stop by and ask a question if you’ve got one. Posters are eligible to win free copies of the book.

• Unsurprisingly, RailsConf was something of a lost week in terms of writing on the book, so I’ve decided to skip a week in the update schedule. The next update will by May 25th, and it will include a new section on RSpec, a new section converting my RailsConf presentation back into text, and something else as time permits. I’m actually hoping to get another edit read on the entire text.

• I forgot to mention one of my favorite sessions of RailsConf, the Teaching Rails BoF that was moderated by Ben Scofield. There was a lot of great energy in the room and a number of people working on related efforts. Checkout RailsBridge as well as the Rails Tutor project. Also keep an eye out for a Rails Mentoring program coming online soon.

News and notes

• The next book update will probably be released on Sunday before I head off for RailsConf. Definitely in there will be a longish chapter on Shoulda and a bit on how to handle legacy code. Hopefully one other chapter as yet to be determined.

• Speaking of RailsConf, I’ve also gotten a Birds of a Feather session on the schedule. The title is “Testing In Rails, What’s New, What’s Now, and What’s Missing”, and it’ll be at 9 PM Wednesday night in Pavilion 9 – 10. Come by for what I hope will be an interesting discussion of everything new in Rails Testing land.

• Also speaking of RailsConf, follow @railsrx or @noelrap on Twitter for news about giveaways. There will be at least two sets, one of which will be based on attendance at my talk, one of which will not. Free books, and some kind of merch for potential winners who already have a license for the book.

• Finally, speaking of RailsConf, I’d love to meet anybody who is reading the book or this blog. I’m probably the worst networker in the known universe, but please do come up and say hi if you see me around.

I have several interconnected status reports to make.

First off, a quickie that I want to put up top so that nobody misses it. I’ve added @railsrx as the Twitter account that will announce new updates and other Rails Prescriptions based information. This will allow me to separate my personal account, though I hope I’ll make that interesting enough for you to continue to follow.

As for the main news…

As I alluded to a few days ago, Lulu.com’s technical support was not helpful in resolving the issue of giving purchasers access to updated versions of the book. Essentially, Lulu treats ebook downloads the same as a physical book—the version you buy is the one attached to your account, and there’s no facility to update that attachment. I strongly suspect this is a deep-rooted architecture issue rather than Lulu really thinking this is a logical way to handle digital downloads, but that’s not really important.

For most of the past couple of weeks, I’ve been working to set up a registration system on this site. If you are actually reading this on the blog, it’s up and running.

Here’s the important part if you have already purchased Rails Test Prescriptions. Head over to http://www.railsprescriptions.com/users/new to register. This link also appears on the left sidebar of all pages on this site, and on the home page. Enter an email, a desired password, and enough of your Lulu or PayPal receipt so that I can verify that you have purchased the book. As quickly as I can, you’ll get an email approving your account, and you will be able to head to http://www.railsprescriptions.com/products to download all versions of the book.

I’m sorry about the added steps of inconvenience—I was genuinely under the impression that Lulu would enable easy updates for you early purchasers. A plus side for me is that it makes it easy to give out free or review copies (RailsConf attendees take note…). It also gives you the option of purchasing new copies via the PayPal donate button. Any donation of $9 or more can be registered, and will give you access to the download page.

There actually is a book update, version 3, that will go live on both Lulu and here today, however since most of my time has been spent configuring the site, there’s not much to it. It’s an updated description of the registration process, and the beginnings of the chapter on Shoulda, which I have high hopes for, but which isn’t finished yet.

So, to sum up:

1. Existing readers should register at http://www.railsprescriptions.com/users/new
2. New readers can continue to purchase via Lulu or via the donate button on this page.
3. I’m really sorry for the inconvenience.
4. A book update will go live today, but the next one will be much bigger.

As always, complaints, comments, praise, or whatever can get emailed to railsprescriptions at gmail dot com.

Thanks

Crossposting alert: I have a post about test structure and nested contexts up at the Pathfinder Agile Ajax blog. Enjoy.

I heard from Lulu.com support yesterday, and apparently they don’t, in fact, support the kind of updating that I thought they did. Which is my fault, I guess, although the comments in their support forum before I set up the book there led me to believe otherwise.

I’ll be setting up a registration system on this site in the next couple of days where people who purchased the book on Lulu will be able to get updates easily. Long term, this means I’ll move the purchase site for the book, but I don’t have any place to put it at the moment, so I’m stuck with this rather unwieldy process for the interim. Which is irritating for me and for you.

I still haven’t heard back from Lulu about allowing access to the updates on their site.

Plan B will be to allow readers to register on this site and get access to updates directly. I’m reluctant to move on that until after I hear from Lulu because a) it’s work I need to do in time I don’t really have and b) it’s potentially a less satisfying experience for you as a user then if the Lulu channel was working properly.

In the meantime, let me know via email at railsprescriptions at gmail.com if you have an emergency need for the update. I’ll point out that the bulk of this update is the Cucumber stuff, and that’s in the free download.

Again, I’m really sorry about this—it was decidedly not the way I was hoping the update process would go, and I feel awful that those of you who were most enthusiastic about purchasing the book have been most strongly affected.

Please bear with me, and I hope to have this worked out in time for the next update.

Okay, I’ve got some good news, and some less good news.

The good news: Rails Test Prescriptions, revision two is now available on Lulu.com. This version has two and a half new sections.

• A really long section on acceptance testing with Cucumber.

• A less long section on using Autotest to run your tests.

• Half a section – really an extended rant or two – on testing style.

All told, this adds about thirty some-odd pages to the book. The plan continues to be to do updates every two weeks. I think the next batch will go after Shoulda and RSpec. But if you have an opinion about where to go next, let me hear it.

Good news number two. In the spirit of “give a way a little bit more than you think you should” (advice from Merlin Mann and John Gruber in their SxSW session on blogging), I’ve decided to add the Cucumber section to the Getting Started free book. The free book is now 80 pages of how-to, slam-bang, testing goodness. Download it

Now, I’d love to be able to tell those of you that have already bought the book via Lulu that it’s easy as pie to access the download. Unfortunately, I have reason to think that Lulu isn’t quite working as I’d been lead to believe. If you go to your Lulu account’s “my downloads” page and the file is test_prescriptions_002.pdf, yay—you’ve got the update. If the file is still test_prescriptions_001.pdf, well, I’m in contact with Lulu tech support about it. Please let me know if you are experiencing update success or failure. Any problem with this upgrade is embarrassing, and I will get it resolved in the next few days, one way or another. In the meantime, the Cucumber section is available in the free download. Let me know if there’s an immediate issue that I can help with.

Important sales milestone over the weekend and the Lulu revenue nosed past my monetary start up costs for putting the book and the web site together. So, thanks to those of you that have bought the book so far—I appreciate it. If you’re enjoying it so far, let me know, tell a friend, say nice things online, you know, that kind of thing. If you aren’t enjoying it so far, let me know so that I can work on making the book better over time.

I think the ongoing release schedule will go like this: next Monday, then every other Monday until I feel sufficiently done. Next week’s release will have a long Cucumber section, a shorter autotest section, and I’m not sure what else. However, I’m trying to get on a more agile-like iteration schedule, so I’ll release on the 6th no matter what else is done or not done.

In the meantime, looks like there’s kind of an arms race in my RailsConf time slot. I’m at the same Tuesday 2:50 PM time slot. I’m now ten percent more scared that I’ll be speaking to an empty room. Actually, I’m hoping to have some promotional stuff of some kind—turns out I have a book to promote. But I don’t know if I’ll be able to get that done or not. I’ll have more to say about RailsConf closer to the date, but the short version is, come to my talk, say hi.

News and notes from around the league.

I’m currently writing about Cucumber. It feels like I’ve been writing about cucumber for days. Longish post about Cucumber on the Pathfinder blog, plus I’m working on the Cucumber section for the book itself. The cucumber section for the book a) has almost no overlap with the Pathfinder blog post, and b) could well wind up as the longest section other than the actual getting started part. This is because I’m crazy. Actually, it’s really because it’s basically a mini-tutorial, using Acceptance Test Driven Development.

Anyway, current plan is for a second release on or about March 31, including Cucumber, autotest, and one or two other pieces yet to be determined.

Couple of links: Even though this is in Perl it’s an interesting essay on being a TDD fanatic versus actually getting things done. It sort of ties to my RailsConf talk, which is going to break apart what pieces of TDD are the most useful, and how permutations of the process affect results.

Pat Maddox, who is a core RSpec team member wrote a great post on mocks—this definitely changed some of the advice I gave in the Mocks and Stubs section of the book.

For an alternate view, 3HV talks about the brittleness of mocks.