Test-Driven Infrastructure with Chef, 2nd Edition

Chapter 1. The Philosophy of Test-Driven Infrastructure

When the first edition of this book was published in late summer 2011, there was broad skepticism in response to the idea of testing infrastructure code and only a handful of pioneers and practitioners.

Less than a year later at the inaugural #ChefConf, the Chef user conference, two of the plenary sessions and a four-hour hack session were devoted to testing. Later that year at the Chef Developer Summit, where people meet to discuss the state and direction of the Chef open source project, code testing and lifecycle practices and techniques emerged as top themes that featured in many heavily attended sessions—including one with nearly 100 core community members.

Infrastructure testing is a hugely topical subject now, with many excellent contributors furthering the state of the art. The tools and approaches that make up the infrastructure testing ecosystem have evolved significantly. It’s an area with a high rate of change and few established best practices, and it is easy to be overwhelmed at the amount to learn and bewildered at the range of tools available. This book is intended to be the companion for those new to the whole idea of infrastructure as code, as well as those who have been working within that paradigm and are now looking fully to embrace the need to prioritize testing.

This update is much expanded and provides a thorough introduction to the philosophy and basics of test-driven development and behavior-driven development ...