It is usually not long after adopting the Executable Specification practice (aka Example Driven Development, Acceptance Test Driven Development – ATDD, Story Test Driven Development – STDD) that good software teams want to integrate GreenPepper in their build process. This is an area where we think GreenPepper shines. GreenPepper allows for a smooth process of adding / modifiying specifications -> implementing in TDD style -> committing code and specification –> automated continuous build. Let me walk you through what happens. At the beginning (and during) of an iteration or sprint some specification pages are modified or added. GreenPepper keeps track of the implemented vs working copy. The various build tool integration we have (Maven, MSBuild, Nant …) will continue to use the implemented version therefore your build is not broken and you do not need to move the modified or added pages in a temporary area. Great! At some point a developer will assign himself to the implementation. In his favorite IDE (Eclipse or Visual Studio) he can easily locate the modified specification page and switch to the working copy Then he executes the page and should see the page not passing. Then he goes and develop the code TDD style with his favorite unit testing tool integrated in his IDE (JUnit, TestNG, Visual Studio, Nunit, etc.) He can frequently re-execute the page and see it slowly turn from red to green! Once it is all green, he commits his code in the source control and from the IDE he sets the specification page as implemented. The next build will use the committed code and page and life will be Green!
