Speed up RSpec tests: understand lifecycle and execution - Remi Mercier

One of RSpec’s strengths is the legibility of its behavior-based DSL. The other side of this coin is that the proliferation of small example blocks introduces a performance overhead. Why? Because of RSpec test files’ lifecycle! I’ll describe broadly how RSpec handles a test file, and the performance implications. Then, we’ll see how we can make your RSpec tests run faster! This is an intermediate-level post. If you’re unfamiliar with RSpec, start at the beginning of the series.