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15 Minutes with Rhino.Mocks

Rhino.Mocks - fluent mocking At next week's CONDG meeting I'll be giving a Lightning Talk on my favorite .net mocking framework, Rhino.Mocks.

As I sat down to start planning my talk I realized I had a little problem - how do I cover such an extensive and powerful tool in just 15 minutes?

The answer: I don't

Even if I spewed out words at a rate comparable with a world-class auctioneer I still couldn't cover everything I wanted to. Off the top of my head...

  • Mock vs. DynamicMock vs. PartialMock vs. Stub
  • what's the deal with expectations?
  • Record... Playback... WTF?
  • what are those criteria things?

And what about the tangential discussions on topics like

  • mocks vs. stubs vs. fakes vs. test doubles... what's the big diff?
  • mocking is an integral part of TDD/BDD
  • following DIP makes mocking easier
  • what about auto-mocking IoC containers?

With so much to talk about, how can I possibly pare it down to just 15 minutes?

I don't, YOU do!

Pretend for a minute that you were going to be at that meeting... what about Rhino.Mocks would you want me to discuss. There are no right or wrong answers here, I just need some guidance. What is it that people want and/or need to know about mocking with Rhino?

Oh, and don't limit yourself to the topics I've discussed above... anything goes. So lay it on me!

Ready... GO!

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What others are saying.

# re: 15 Minutes with Rhino.Mocks
Gravatar Alan Stevens
Feb 19, 2008
Steven,

I don't think you can get very far in 15 minutes. I worry that people may be more confused than informed. Stick to demos. Pick one testing scenario and walk it from beginning to end. Keep it simple.

Finally, come talk for 90 minutes about rhino mocks at ETNUG (http://etnug.org).

Cheers,

++Alan
# re: 15 Minutes with Rhino.Mocks
Gravatar James Bender
Feb 20, 2008
I agree with Alan, as someone who is not super familiar with Rhino Mocks a basic see-Spot-run demo would be great.
# re: 15 Minutes with Rhino.Mocks
Gravatar Patrick Gannon
Feb 20, 2008
Fifteen minutes is not very much, but you can cover a fair amount in that time if you hold questions until after your time is up. (I'm finding that interactive discussions take 3x as long as the prepared information would seem to, which can be good or bad depending on how much time you have, and how much information you need to cover.)

As someone who knows very little about RhinoMocks, I tend to think that your first group of topics would be more useful to me (and probably to most UG folks) than would the second group of topics (which seem like they're more advanced). I definately agree with the other comments on this page saying you should not try to cram everything in... Just talk about the basics that people need to get STARTED, and give a teaser on what you weren't able to cover, so people will want you speak on the topic again. :-)
# re: 15 Minutes with Rhino.Mocks
Gravatar tim
Feb 21, 2008
I'm with the others...in 15 minutes, get me a good start. Set up a quick mocking demo and get a simple one running.
# re: 15 Minutes with Rhino.Mocks
Gravatar Damien Guard
Feb 21, 2008
The important two questions are (for me)

1. Why mock at all?
2. Why Rhino Mocks in particular?

With code samples to illustrate the answers. Ideally stick to evolution of a single scenario that shows real gains through problem to solution, to better solution...

[)amien
# re: 15 Minutes with Rhino.Mocks
Gravatar Ryan Lanciaux
Feb 21, 2008
I would say the most useful thing would be why to use it... unless you think most people would already know that stuff. Fifteen minutes is really not enough time to do it justice but might be enough time to get people interested enough to come to your site (or another resource) to get a full blown example.
# re: 15 Minutes with Rhino.Mocks
Gravatar Kevin Upchurch
Mar 03, 2008
I guess I've 'played' around with rhino, but it seems to me that its a lot of work, just to set up the mocks and the tests. Whereas it seems like functional & integrated tests would be more valuable, but understandably slower. So my questions would be 'Why mock, and why rhino'
# Lightning Talk Recap:15 Minutes with Rhino.Mocks
Gravatar StevenHarman.net
Mar 05, 2008
Lightning Talk Recap:15 Minutes with Rhino.Mocks
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