Pull in Viget posts

content/elsewhere/how-why-to-run-autotest-on-your-mac/index.md

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+---
+title: "How (& Why) to Run Autotest on your Mac"
+date: 2009-06-19T00:00:00+00:00
+draft: false
+needs_review: true
+canonical_url: https://www.viget.com/articles/how-why-to-run-autotest-on-your-mac/
+---
+
+If you aren't using Autotest to develop your Ruby application, you're
+missing out on effortless continuous testing. If you'd *like* to be
+using Autotest, but can't get it running properly, I'll show you how to
+set it up.
+
+Autotest is a fantastic way to do TDD/BDD. Here's a rundown of the
+benefits from the [project
+homepage](http://www.zenspider.com/ZSS/Products/ZenTest/):
+
+-   Improves feedback by running tests continuously.
+-   Continually runs tests based on files you've changed.
+-   Get feedback as soon as you save. Keeps you in your editor allowing
+    you to get stuff done faster.
+-   Focuses on running previous failures until you've fixed them.
+
+Like any responsible Ruby citizen, Autotest changes radically every
+month or so. A few weeks ago, some enterprising developers released
+autotest-mac (now
+[autotest-fsevent](http://www.bitcetera.com/en/techblog/2009/05/27/mac-friendly-autotest/)),
+which monitors code changes via native OS X system events rather than by
+polling the hard drive, increasing battery and disk life and improving
+performance. Here's how get Autotest running on your Mac, current as of
+this morning:
+
+1.  Install autotest:
+
+    ``` {#code}
+    gem install ZenTest 
+    ```
+
+2.  Or, if you've already got an older version installed:
+
+    ``` {#code}
+    gem update ZenTest gem cleanup ZenTest 
+    ```
+
+3.  Install autotest-rails:
+
+    ``` {#code}
+    gem install autotest-rails 
+    ```
+
+4.  Install autotest-fsevent:
+
+    ``` {#code}
+    gem install autotest-fsevent 
+    ```
+
+5.  Install autotest-growl:
+
+    ``` {#code}
+    gem install autotest-growl 
+    ```
+
+6.  Make a `~/.autotest` file, with the following:
+
+    ``` {#code}
+    require "autotest/growl" require "autotest/fsevent" 
+    ```
+
+7.  Run `autotest` in your app root.
+
+Autotest is a fundamental part of my development workflow, and well
+worth the occasional setup headache; give it a shot and I think you'll
+agree. These instructions should be enough to get you up and running,
+unless you're reading this more than three weeks after it was published,
+in which case all. bets. are. off.