Why is RSpec so slow under Rails?

Question

Whenever I run rspec tests for my Rails application it takes forever and a day of overhead before it actually starts running tests. Why is rspec so slow? Is there a way to

Answer 1

I think the "zen" experience you're looking for is to run spec_server and autospec in the background, with the result being near-instant tests when you save a file.

However, I'm having problems getting these two programs to communicate.

I found an explanation here:

I've noticed that autotest doesn't send commands to the spec_server. Instead it reloads the entire Rails environment and your application's plugins everytime it executes. This causes autotest to run significantly slower than script server, because when you run the script/spec command the specs are sent to the spec_server which already has your Rails environment fired up and ready to go. If you happen to install a new plugin or something like that, then you'll have to restart the spec_server.

But, how do we fix this issue? I'm guessing it would involve downloading ZenTest and changing code for the autotest program, but don't have time to try it out right now.