InstantDisappointmentFormatter is an RSpec formatter that combines the succinct output of ProgressBarFormatter with the fast failure details of SpecDocFormatter.

If you have a large suite of specs, and they take a long time to run, it’s likely you are using the ProgressBarFormatter (--format p) to squelch RSpec’s noisy output and run your specs faster. Unfortunately, the ProgressBarFormatter doesn’t print failure details until all specs are finished, so, if you get a failure early in your specs, you have to wait a long time before you can see the details of the failure.

Well, no more- the InsantDisappointmentFormatter behaves like ProgressBarFormatter when specs pass or are pending, but prints the details of failing specs immediately, so you can get on with the fixing while the specs continue to run in the background.

  gem install instant_disappointment

If you run spec from the command line:

  spec --require instant_disappointment_formatter --format Spec::Runner::Formatter::InstantDisappointmentFormatter <your_specfiles_here>

If you use a spec.opts file:

  --require instant_disappointment_formatter
  --format Spec::Runner::Formatter::InstantDisappointmentFormatter

  spec spec 
  ......................F......................................................................

  1)
  'PeoplePlacesThings::PersonName should not parse middle initial as suffix' FAILED
  expected: "browxn",
       got: "brown" (using ==)
  ./spec/person_name_spec.rb:44:

  Finished in 0.079263 seconds

  93 examples, 1 failure

  spec -r instant_disappointment_formatter -f Spec::Runner::Formatter::InstantDisappointmentFormatter spec
  ......................F

  1)
  'PeoplePlacesThings::PersonName should not parse middle initial as suffix' FAILED
  expected: "browxn",
       got: "brown" (using ==)
  /Users/dburkes/work/people_places_things/spec/person_name_spec.rb:44:

  ......................................................................
  Finished in 0.069332 seconds

  93 examples, 1 failure

BUENO!