So ever since the fine folks at Addison Wesley sent over a copy of Test-Driven JavaScript Development (by Christian Johansen) I’ve been trying to wrap my head around a new sort of testing when it comes to web apps. I’m not even half-way through the book and I’ve already had my mind blown by advanced javascript and testing methods that I just never thought about when I work on my frontends.

I’m a big fan of unit testing and promote it whenever I can – not only does it help create a code base that a better quality, but it also lets you keep things consistent. No more of the “cross your fingers” kind of coding. A good, well-written set of unit tests can save you a whole world of hassle in the long run. Taking it one step further, you get to TDD (test-driven development) where you write your tests before you even write your code. You start with the usual “W”s – why, where, when, how (yes, I know that last one’s an “H”s) and develop the test for those rather than looking at a current chunk of code and testing what it already does. There’s some people that swear by it, one of them being the author of this book.

He starts with an introduction to TDD and a general how-it-works with javascript quickly followed by an introduction to his tool of choice – JsTestDriver. All of the test examples in the following chapters are run with this tool. Thankfully it’s simple to set up and even easier to write tests for. He shows some introductory tests to help you get familiar with things before diving into the next section – testing javascript itself.

I have to admit, this section left me at a loss for words. I thought I knew a good bit about how javascript works, both out in front and behind the scenes. I was surprised, however, just how much of the functionality he tested I had no idea worked that way. It’s pretty in-depth, so if you’re a beginning javascript dev, you might go read some more tutorials before diving right in.

I’m just now getting to the “Unobtrusive Javascript” part of the book (Part 2, Chapter 9) so I still have a ways to go, but each page is enlightening, especially for some one like myself that’s has a primary focus on backend work and unit testing. I’d definitely recommend this book to anyone looking to get into testing their frontends – it’s a great resource and can probably teach you a thing or two.

I’ll try to put up another post when I get closer to the end – it’s hard to find time to sit and read these days, but just little nibbles at a time work just fine.