[ihumanable]

How much longer until Steak gets a nifty DSL so it looks like Cucumber again, maybe they'll call it Zucchini this time.

Ruby seems to be playing with fire a little bit here, similar to the insanity that happened with Java and XML.

Java programs can't handle some edge case, program becomes configurable with XML, huge win. Then XML goes way too far, people start disliking XML, Java falls from grace.

Ruby programs are somewhat cumbersome, but Ruby, being fairly awesome, allows you to define a DSL. People write DSLs that make tasks easier, huge win. Then there are too many DSLs, people get tired of trying to figure out _another_ (groan) new DSL to do something they now know how to do in ruby.

Both start with this simple idea, flavor of the month type thing, that in the beginning is a huge win. After a while though both burn out. I think the saving grace for ruby is that people will just reimplement the DSL as a more straightforward ruby library.

[cmdrkeene]

Steak doesn't want to be cucumber at all. It's plain ruby. The "DSL" aspects of the library are purely for legibility and structure. The keywords feature, background, scenario perform the exact same function as the RSpec keywords describe, before, and it respectively.

All steak does is provide a structure for acceptance tests and loop in a web automation driver (capybara).

Far less magical than parsing a the magic language of "Gherkin"

[jamesbritt]

"Ruby programs are somewhat cumbersome"

How so?