Enroll Course: https://www.coursera.org/learn/test-and-behavior-driven-development-tdd-bdd
In the fast-paced world of software development, ensuring the quality and reliability of your code is paramount. “Introduction to Test and Behavior Driven Development” on Coursera offers a comprehensive deep dive into two of the most effective methodologies for achieving this: Test-Driven Development (TDD) and Behavior-Driven Development (BDD).
This course excels in its foundational approach. It begins by grounding you in the fundamental importance of automated testing, using compelling examples like the Apollo 11 Lunar Module’s guidance system to illustrate the catastrophic consequences of inadequate testing. You’ll explore the four levels of testing and understand their place within the traditional release cycle. The course clearly defines TDD and BDD, highlighting why they are essential for building robust, failure-resilient applications.
The TDD module is particularly strong, breaking down the core Red/Green/Refactor workflow into digestible steps. It emphasizes TDD’s crucial role in DevOps and automated testing, introducing popular Python testing tools like Unittest and Nose. You’ll learn about vital concepts such as assertions, the necessity of testing both ‘happy’ and ‘sad’ paths, and the use of test fixtures to set up initial states for tests.
Moving into advanced TDD, the course tackles test coverage, explaining how to increase it with reports and why continuous testing remains important even at full coverage. The practical application of testing with fake data using factories, and the nuanced concepts of mocking (patching function calls and entire objects) are explained with clarity, providing developers with powerful tools to simulate complex scenarios.
The BDD section is equally impressive. It clearly outlines the benefits of BDD for higher-level automated testing and introduces the Gherkin syntax, the standard for writing BDD specifications. The course then guides you through using the Behave framework in Python, demonstrating how to write feature and step files to test application behavior from a user’s perspective. You’ll learn to build Behave environments, control test execution, load test data, automate web interactions with Selenium, and write custom Python functions for behavior testing.
The final module culminates in a substantial project where you’ll apply TDD to build a REST API for an e-commerce product catalog and use BDD with Behave to test the administrative UI. This hands-on experience solidifies the learned concepts and prepares you for real-world application. The course concludes with a final exam to reinforce your understanding.
**Recommendation:**
“Introduction to Test and Behavior Driven Development” is an outstanding course for any developer looking to elevate their code quality. Whether you’re new to testing or looking to refine your TDD/BDD skills, this course provides a solid theoretical foundation and practical, hands-on experience. The instructors explain complex topics clearly, and the project work is highly valuable. Highly recommended for aspiring and seasoned developers alike who want to build better, more reliable software.
Enroll Course: https://www.coursera.org/learn/test-and-behavior-driven-development-tdd-bdd