FIT

Framework for Integrated Test was a name that irked many. I used the word "test" as a verb meaning the activity others would call testing. But I also wanted it to represent the noun, the tests produced, which I wanted to have longevity. website

In 2002 Eric Evans convinced me that there should be a widely available version of my functional testing framework. See Automated Testing.

I wasn't convinced immediately. I knew each implementation I'd done had been wildly different, largely due to differing approaches to fixturing.

I pitched Kent Beck on including this experience in his test-first book. He said no. I'd have to work harder myself if I wanted a wide audience to see this work.

Parse was written in July in a hotel room in San Francisco using IntelliJ on a pc laptop.

I wrote the current parser using index and substring in place of regular expressions. Brian Forst reviewed this and the PrimitiveFixture that went with it. I was encouraged.

Bret Pettichord and Brian Marick hosted a workshop on Agile Acceptance Testing at Agile/XP Universe in Chicago. Conversations with them and James Bach convinced me that the framework was only a small part of what was needed for testing to be agile, but it was an indispensable part none the less.

I took an Apple iBook with me on vacation in the Oregon High Desert. I wrote all the reflection code early in the morning while my family slept. I used IntellijIdea and refactored mercilessly. I built the wiki on my return and invited the who's who of important people to helped me get it to beta.

The rest came together quickly working roughly four hours a day, mostly in the early morning.

Fixtures were written in August in a cabin at the Sunriver resort in the Oregon high desert using IntelliJ on an apple laptop.

The Wiki and most examples were written in September in Portland using the java version plus perl and linux.

I decided to spend a year going to conferences and teaching FIT in tutorials. They were well received. AW picked up on the possibility that there was a book there.

I met Rick Mugridge at an XP conference in Italy. He expressed interest in writing the book. I described how Bo Leuf and I had worked on The Wiki Way. That sounded ok with Rick. Its what we did.

Rick and I met again with AW at a conference in Salt Lake. AW wanted my name first on the cover. I said no. Rick was doing the writing and deserved the placement. Our editor later told AW marketing that Rick came first or there would be no book.