[aerogear-dev] To Groovy or not to Groovy in integration tests

[Karel Piwko]

Hi,

let me summarize the discussion from previous threads:

What were testing requirements?
* Do not mock
* Cover both backend and frontend testing at the same time
* Control test env from tests/Maven, so it runs on both CI and local machine
  without any setup required
=> Those 3 requirements limited us to use Arquillian
* Cover unified push server specifications in readable way

Why Groovy instead of Java?
+ Better support for JSON
+ Spock provides very nice BDD support
+ Still supports anything Java would do

What problems we faced with Groovy?
- Needs specific compiler - solved, configured for tests only
- Needs support in IDE - Intellij - ootb, Eclipse and NetBeans have
  plugins
- Needs to be deployed in test deployment - not addressed now, prolongs test
  execution by few seconds per deployment

What are currently raised concerns?
- Different language for development and testing
- Raises bar for newcomers willing to write tests

Thank you for additional advantages, concerns or proving some of those are not
valid.

Karel