= What is Futile? Futile aims to be a cross-platform, cross-framework, robust and lightweight functional testing package for web pages.

And yes, we deliberately used those buzzwords.

= Why should I use it? For a hypothetical users of your website the most important thing is that it works. They don't care wether your #authorize method returns instance of user or an integer. They don't give a damn about it! They want to see the page, type in their login/password and see their profile. That's it. Easy as it sounds.

== What is wrong with functional tests Imagine you have a registration form. It is very simple, includes login and two password fields (one real and one to confirm). Within Rails you might do something like this: def test_registers assert_difference(User, :count) do post(register_user_path, {:user => {:login => "msq", :password => "test", :password_confirmation => "test"}}) end

more assertions here...

end The test passes, you are happy. Now go to your registration form and change the name of login field to :log_in. The test passes again. But the registration is not working! User is unable to register which seems to be a serious bug.

Also the #register_user_path method might be considered wrong. Remember that users type in your page address and it's probably the last thing they type into address bar -- unless they are leaving your page. The rest happens through and

obrok / futile

readme

more assertions here...