The Real Python Podcast

Behavior-Driven vs Test-Driven Development & Using Regex in Python

Feb 14, 2025

Christopher Trudeau, a RealPython instructor and regular contributor to PyCoder's Weekly, discusses the nuances of behavior-driven development (BDD) and its relationship with test-driven development (TDD). He emphasizes the importance of clear communication in teams and shares tools for crafting plain language acceptance tests. The conversation also touches on exciting Python updates, complex string pattern matching using regex, and innovative projects in the Python community, including Django bug fixes and the Playwright framework for web testing.

57:03

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Christopher Trudeau

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Quick takeaways

Behavior-Driven Development (BDD) promotes collaboration among technical and non-technical teams, ensuring alignment with business goals through shared understanding of requirements.

Test-Driven Development (TDD) and BDD complement each other, with TDD focusing on unit tests while BDD emphasizes user behavior and expectations.

Acceptance tests in BDD are crucial for verifying feature functionality from the user’s perspective, featuring collaboration between stakeholders and developers to cover all scenarios.

Deep dives

Understanding Behavior-Driven Development (BDD)

Behavior-Driven Development (BDD) enhances software development by focusing on collaboration between technical and non-technical team members. It involves writing tests that describe how an application should behave in terms that are easily understandable by all stakeholders. BDD typically centers around user stories and acceptance criteria, which clearly define the expected behavior of a feature. This approach ensures that development is aligned with business goals, reducing discrepancies between what developers create and what stakeholders expect.

Intro

2min

Exciting Updates and Innovations in Python

10min

Mastering Django Bootstrapping and Playwright Integration

7min

Mastering Playwright and Regular Expressions

6min

Understanding Regular Expressions and Testing Methodologies in Python

5min

Understanding TDD and BDD in Software Development

24min

Exploring JamesPath: A Query Language for JSON

3min

What is behavior-driven development, and how does it work alongside test-driven development? How do you communicate requirements between teams in an organization? Christopher Trudeau is back on the show this week, bringing another batch of PyCoder’s Weekly articles and projects.

In this episode, we expand on our software testing discussion from two weeks ago by adding behavior-driven development concepts. Christopher describes how BDD correlates with test-driven development and how it fosters collaboration within a team. We discuss building acceptance tests written in plain language and a handy tool for creating them.

We also share several other articles and projects from the Python community, including a news roundup, using regular expressions in Python, dealing with missing data in Polars, monkey patching in Django, first steps with Playwright, 3D printing giant things with a Python jigsaw generator, and a query language for JSON.

This episode is sponsored by Postman.

Course Spotlight: Regular Expressions and Building Regexes in Python

In this course, you’ll learn how to perform more complex string pattern matching using regular expressions, or regexes, in Python. You’ll also explore more advanced regex tools and techniques that are available in Python.

Topics:

00:00:00 – Introduction
00:02:21 – PyOhio 2025 July 26-27, 2025 Announced
00:02:38 – Python 3.13.2 and 3.12.9 now available!
00:02:52 – Django bugfix releases issued: 5.1.6, 5.0.12, and 4.2.19
00:03:04 – DjangoCon Europe 2025 - Real Python Podcast
00:05:24 – How to Deal With Missing Data in Polars
00:10:29 – Monkey Patching Django
00:15:50 – Sponsor: Postman
00:16:42 – My First Steps With Playwright
00:20:48 – How to Use Regular Expressions in Python
00:25:55 – Video Course Spotlight
00:27:25 – TDD vs. BDD: What’s the Difference?
00:50:13 – 3D Printing Giant Things With a Python Jigsaw Generator
00:53:58 – jmespath.py: Query Language for JSON
00:55:58 – Thanks and goodbye

News:

Topics:

How to Deal With Missing Data in Polars – In this tutorial, you’ll learn how to deal with missing data in Polars to ensure it doesn’t interfere with your data analysis. You’ll discover how to check for missing values, update them, and remove them.
Monkey Patching Django – The nanodjango project is a modification to the Django framework that lets you get started with a single file instead of the usual cookie-cutter directory structure. This is a detailed post explaining how nanodjango monkey patches Django to achieve this result.
Fake Django Objects With Factory Boy – The
My First Steps With Playwright – Playwright is a browser-based automation tool that can be used for web scraping or testing. This intro article shows you how to use the Python interface to access a page including using cookies.
How to Use Regular Expressions in Python – This post explores the basics of regular expressions in Python, as well as more advanced techniques. It includes real-world use cases and performance optimization strategies.

Discussion:

TDD vs. BDD: What’s the Difference? – Discover the key differences between TDD vs BDD, their workflows, tools, and best practices for developers.
Cucumber

Projects:

3D Printing Giant Things With a Python Jigsaw Generator – This is a long, detailed article on 3D printing objects too large for the printer bed. The author has created dovetail joints to assemble pieces together. He wrote a Python program to automatically split up the larger model files into the jigsaw pieces needed to build a final result.
jmespath.py: Query Language for JSON

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