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Backbone.js Testing
Backbone.js Testing

Backbone.js Testing:

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Profile Icon Ryan Glenn Roemer
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Full star icon Full star icon Full star icon Full star icon Half star icon 4.9 (14 Ratings)
Paperback Jul 2013 168 pages Edition
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Arrow left icon
Profile Icon Ryan Glenn Roemer
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$19.99 per month
Full star icon Full star icon Full star icon Full star icon Half star icon 4.9 (14 Ratings)
Paperback Jul 2013 168 pages Edition
eBook
$18.99 $21.99
Paperback
$43.99
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Backbone.js Testing

Chapter 1. Setting Up a Test Infrastructure

Modern web development is witnessing a JavaScript renaissance, with the expanding popularity of frontend-driven, single-page, and real-time web applications. Leading and facilitating the charge are a number of JavaScript web frameworks that enable developers to sensibly organize frontend web applications into modular and convention-driven components. As more logic and functionality is pushed from the server to the browser, these frameworks are increasingly critical in maintaining single-page application state, avoiding unstructured and ad hoc "spaghetti" code, and providing abstractions and functionality for commonly encountered development situations.

This book will focus on one such framework—Backbone.js (http://backbonejs.org/)—that stands out from the crowd with a well-balanced feature set including small footprint size, solid core abstractions, and significant community support. Backbone.js provides a minimum set of useful interfaces (for example, models, collections, routers, and views) for application development while maintaining an enormous amount of flexibility with pluggable template engines, extensible events for cross-component communication, and a generally agnostic approach to code interaction and patterns. The framework is used at scale in applications for organizations such as USA Today, LinkedIn, Hulu, Foursquare, Disqus, and many others. Essentially, Backbone.js provides practical tools for data-driven, client-heavy web application development without getting too much in the way.

However, this evolving world of frontend development is scattered with many potential stumbling blocks. More specifically, while the theoretical application possibilities with modern JavaScript frameworks such as Backbone.js are endless, one of the most critical issues looming over rapid application development in this sphere is software quality and reliability.

JavaScript web applications are already notoriously difficult to verify and test: asynchronous DOM events and data requests are subject to timing issues and spurious failures, display behavior is difficult to isolate from application logic, and test suites depend on/interact with a specific browser. Frontend frameworks such as Backbone.js add another level of complexity with additional interfaces that need to be isolated and tested, large numbers of various small components interacting concurrently, and event logic propagating throughout application layers. Moreover, the implementation agnostic paradigm of Backbone.js produces wildly varying application code bases, making test guidelines and heuristics something of a moving target.

In this book, we will tackle the challenge of testing Backbone.js applications by identifying the parts of an application to be tested, asserting correct behavior of various components, and verifying that the program works as intended as an integrated whole. Kicking things off in this chapter, we will introduce a basic test infrastructure in the following parts:

  • Designing a repository structure in which to develop Backbone.js applications and tests

  • Getting the Mocha, Chai, and Sinon.JS test libraries

  • Setting up and writing our first tests

  • Running and assessing test results with the Mocha test reporter

We assume that the reader is already comfortable with JavaScript web application development and familiar with Backbone.js and its usual complements—Underscore.js (http://underscorejs.org/) and jQuery (http://jquery.com/). All other libraries and technologies will be properly introduced as they are used throughout this book.

Note

Although this book focuses on Backbone.js applications, the test techniques and technologies we introduce should easily carry over to other frontend JavaScript frameworks and web applications. There are a lot of great frameworks in the frontend ecosystem besides Backbone.js—try one of them!

Designing an application and test repository structure


Setting up a test infrastructure first requires a plan as to where all the parts and pieces will go. We will start with a simple directory structure for a code repository as follows:

app/
  index.html
  css/
  js/
    app/
    lib/

test/
  test.html
  js/
    lib/
    spec/

The app/index.html file contains the web application, while test/test.html provides the test driver page. Application and test libraries are respectively contained in the app/js/ and test/js/ directories.

Note

This is just one way to organize a Backbone.js application and tests. Other directory layouts may be more appropriate, and you should feel free to follow your own conventions and preferences in light of the specific development project at hand.

The Backbone.js application and component files (models, views, routers, and so on) are placed in app/js/app/, which may look something like the following:

app/js/app/
  app.js
  models/
    model-a.js
    ...
  views/
    view-a.js
    ...
  ...

The core application libraries are stored in app/js/lib/, which should include the libraries needed to drive the actual application:

app/js/lib/
  backbone.js
  jquery.js
  underscore.js
  ...

The test libraries and suites get a separate directory, test/js/, which isolates the test code from the application to avoid inadvertently introducing application dependencies on test functions or libraries:

test/js/
  lib/
    mocha.js
    mocha.css
    chai.js
    sinon.js
  spec/
    first.spec.js
    second.spec.js
    ...

Now that we have an abstract application and a test layout, we need to fill in all the pieces and populate directories with libraries, web pages, and test files.

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What you will learn

  • Install and set up a test infrastructure for Backbone applications
  • Run, examine, and understand Mocha test reports
  • Tour the Chai assertion library API with detailed examples
  • Write test suites and specs with the Mocha test framework
  • Fake application behavior in tests using Sinon.JS mocks, spies, and fake servers

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Publication date : Jul 12, 2013
Length: 168 pages
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Language : English
ISBN-13 : 9781782165248
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Length: 168 pages
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Language : English
ISBN-13 : 9781782165248
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Table of Contents

6 Chapters
Setting Up a Test Infrastructure Chevron down icon Chevron up icon
Creating a Backbone.js Application Test Plan Chevron down icon Chevron up icon
Test Assertions, Specs, and Suites Chevron down icon Chevron up icon
Test Spies Chevron down icon Chevron up icon
Test Stubs and Mocks Chevron down icon Chevron up icon
Automated Web Testing Chevron down icon Chevron up icon

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Jacob Kronika Oct 09, 2013
Full star icon Full star icon Full star icon Full star icon Full star icon 5
Over the past few weeks, I have spent time reading Backbone.js Testing at the request of the author, Ryan Roemer. This goes through the motions of creating a Notes application (think of a very stripped down and rudimentary Evernote) from the ground up, demonstrating thoroughly the process of testing the implementation throughout.The GoodEvery aspect of this text is well planned and executed. From an overview of the Backbone.js architecture to the Notes application itself, I was very pleased with the content and arrangement. Some of the topics covered by the author include:* Backbone.js Application Development* Mocha Testing Framework* Chai Assertion Framework* Sinon.JS Test Double Library* Test Automation with Selenium and PhantomJSNot So GoodThere really was little or nothing that I can criticize about Backbone.js Testing. The language used was clear and simple, while conveying even the most complex of topics in a way that, I believe, any level of JavaScript programmer would be able to digest easily. There were a few points at which the content, being fairly dense in terms of code snippets to delve through, was somewhat lacking in luster. However, even those areas were well-concieved, with the relevent code highlighted and some areas snipped. The full content remains available for download in the accompanying code samples, and even includes extensive implementation and testing details not specifically covered in the book itself.Overall ImpressionsFar and away, Backbone.js Testing is, in itself, a solid backbone for JS testing in general, while containing specifics related only to the name from which it's title is derived. In addition, the book provides an overarching view of the subject matter without either treading on any given area within too lightly or delving too deep. Finally, there is more than sufficient information in the book, and more so in the code samples, to give anyone looking to develop a test architecture a firm foundation for their implementation.
Amazon Verified review Amazon
Nizzy Sep 24, 2014
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I thoroughly enjoyed this book. Sure, there are tutorials online that cover the same topics but I prefer reading from a physical book. The chapters are short and clear but give a lot of insight into Backbone testing.I had never written a single test in Javascript prior to reading this book and I feel quite confident in my ability to do so now. For that alone, I have no regrets purchasing this book.The only drawbacks I could think of were the brief explanations of asynchronous behavior and Sinon fake servers. A couple more paragraphs and examples would have been nice but the author does point you the literature of the product libraries. Those two features deserve more than what was provided because in my experience they are frequently used.
Amazon Verified review Amazon
George V. Reilly Oct 27, 2013
Full star icon Full star icon Full star icon Full star icon Full star icon 5
Backbone.js Testing is a short, dense introduction to testing JavaScript applications with three testing libraries, Mocha, Chai, and Sinon.JS. Although the author uses a sample application of a personal note manager written with Backbone.js throughout the book, much of the material would apply to any JavaScript client or server framework.Mocha is a test framework that can be executed in the browser or by Node.js, which runs your tests. Chai is a framework-agnostic TDD/BDD assertion library. Sinon.JS provides standalone test spies, stubs and mocks for JavaScript. They complement each other and the author does a good job of explaining when and how to use each.I've written a lot of tests in Python (unittest and mock, primarily) and C# (NUnit), but my experience with JavaScript unit testing was both limited and years out of date. The JavaScript ecosystem continues to evolve rapidly, with new browser frameworks and Node packages springing up everywhere. JavaScript has some particular challenges in testing--notably, the DOM, asynchrony, and callbacks. Mocha, Chai, and Sinon meet those challenges, though they can't take away all the pain.The author describes how to test Backbone models, views, and collections; dealing with asynchrony; provides useful testing heuristics, including isolating components to reduce dependencies; when to use stubs and mocks and fake servers; and test automation with PhantomJS. He does not, however, teach you Backbone.js itself; for that, you'll need another book.There are a few areas which I thought were dealt with too lightly. There's no real discussion of Test-driven_development or Behavior-driven_development, which provide the intellectual foundations of much of the book. Nor does he have much to say about testability and how to make legacy code more testable. The sample Notes app has plenty of testing seams (much of this falls naturally out of the architecture of Backbone); other people's apps are not so lucky. The chapter on automation is extremely terse--it could be expanded into a very large book!--but it does provide useful indicators to many areas for exploration.I learned a lot from this book and I have no hesitation in recommending it.Disclosure: Thanks to Ryan Roemer and Packt for a review copy of this book.
Amazon Verified review Amazon
Mansur Suleman Nov 05, 2013
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I love this book as it actually provides insight on testing all JS applications. Definitely a great choice to web professionals both in front end and back end Javascript technologies.
Amazon Verified review Amazon
threepwood Jul 27, 2013
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Any single tip in this book can save you hours of desperate research. Just the explanation on how to make sure events are bound for testing worths the few bucks I spent.
Amazon Verified review Amazon
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