[Zope3-dev] Re: Zope3 JavaScript unittests
Shane Hathaway
shane@zope.com
Wed, 11 Dec 2002 11:18:37 -0500
Godefroid Chapelle wrote:
> As you supposedly know, there has been work at Rotterdam with JavaScript
> in the UI.
>
> I am looking for opinions how to write unit tests for this JavaScript
> code, if we want to integrate this testing with the whole test suite,
> ... and other points I have not thought about.
>
> I have the feeling that the JS code could grow quiet a lot if we really
> intend to add all bells and whistles we have been speaking about.
>
> I think we need to think about those tests before it gets a too big task
> to integrate.
>
> A first google search conducted me to :
>
> http://www.edwardh.com/jsunit/
>
> Are there people within the community with experience of this
> framework... or another ?
My initial reaction was that it's hard to write unit tests against code
like this. But then I remembered that I thought the same thing of Zope
about 2 years ago, and now we have about 2000 fully automated tests for
both Zope 2 and Zope 3. I've obviously been proven wrong, and I won't
make the same mistake again. :-)
Start with the simple things. The selection management functions in
pdlib should be workable without any user interaction. Then try sending
an XML-RPC request and check the response. You could manually construct
an event object to pop up a context menu (I think there's a
document.createEvent() method or somesuch).
FWIW, of all the software-related things I've learned in the past three
years, automated testing is by far the most important lesson. It can
turn failure into success, and it's easy with a very high-level
language. If I taught computer programming, automated testing would be
part of the very first lesson. (Ok, maybe the second. :-) )
Shane