| The underlying assumption of this article is that it's easier to read code than it is to read english. Well even for a developer of 15 years even the most obtuse English can be more easily absorbed than the cleanest code. The speed of parsing and understanding code is directly related to the amount of time spent writing it and how recently it was read. English can be read and understood at the same speed every time. There is also a non-linear relationship between your feature file size and the underlying code they represent, especially if they represent integration testing. A single feature could test code from 10 different files. For a single developer in an codebase they know and understand well and have recently worked on, Cucumber can act as friction on development. For a single developer who hasn't worked on a codebase before, or who is returning to a codebase after some time Cuke steps will definitely improve their ability to understand what the code is doing and by providing a regression test suite improve the quality and probably speed of their output. Code is a language of instruction - not communication, documentation can help, but it is easily forgotten and fails at communicating integration. |