Snakes and Ladders Kata - Feature 1 Only

The challenge is to code the first feature from Agile's Snakes and Ladders Kata:

Feature 1 - Moving Your Token

As a player
I want to be able to move my token
So that I can get closer to the goal

As a player
I want to move my token based on the roll of a die
So that there is an element of choice in the game

As a player
I want to be able to win the game
So that I can gloat to everyone around

Discussion

How did you approach the problem?

I started by considering the functionality that is required for implementing Feature 1 (initializing game on position 1, dice roll method, move method, move restriction and win declaration)
First code written was the test for the starting position
I continued with the TDD approach of passing each iteration in the simplest manner followed by refactor
In the end I dryed up the move method which had some duplication with a private method used to determine the move_type ie valid, win or bust

How did you make key design decisions and what alternatives did you consider?

I spent some time trying to decide whether I needed a Game class or whether to keep the functionality within a single Player class (or similar) given that we only had to implement Feature 1 without the complexity of two players.

Strangely, I haven't actually built a CLI before. I've always tested in IRB only. Creating a runtime program required an actual play method which might have been better handled by a Game class.

I have struggled to test my CLI required play method as the test triggers runtime. I have left this unresolved....

How do you envision your solution evolving in the future?

There are a number of additional features involved in the original kata. During refactoring I tried to keep my methods very small and defined so that the overall program would be tolerant of change.

In order to expand this program I think the next step would be to create a Game class where Players and a Board (another class) would be instantiated.

The Board could then be instantiated with a placement of snakes and ladders. This might have a default placement or could be randomised.

The Game class would control the next move indicator and would handle the declaration of winners etc.

To Use

Clone or fork this project git clone https://github.com/Whatapalaver/snakes_ladders_ruby.git
Change into the directory cd snakes_ladders_ruby
Install dependencies bundle install
You can start the Command Line Interface (CLI) with ruby bin/main

To test

This command will run both the rspec tests and simplecov bundle exec rspec
To view the coverage detail as a webpage run open coverage/index.html

Whatapalaver/snakes_ladders_ruby